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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lev Parikian 0241636604|title=Light Rains Sometimes FallThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Animals and WildlifeAutobiography|summary= If you’re you were to bring up an image of a writer yourselfcity 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, or an aspiring writerwhere he was familiar with violence, or someone who pretends poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to write, then you know 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 there are unnumbered types of booksmost rich people expect poor people to be stupid. Some you read for fun It was his ability at what was, some for distractionessentially, some for vicarious emotiona card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, some this turned into permanent employment as a trader.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035021803|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to learn from in Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a random way, some request for focussed researchhelp from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and some because they areCarole's close friend, broadly speakingArthur Crockleford, is dead and the kind of thing you think you might like circumstances seem suspicious, to writesay the least. OrArthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, indeedlet her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, are actually trying she has not felt able to writebe near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After 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=1783966386
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0751581577AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Lying Beside YouAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Michael RobothamBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersScience Fiction|summary=Elias Haven murdered his parents and his twin sisters two days ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after his nineteenth birthdayyou're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. Voices told him I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to do me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Only two people survived Of course, I could research the possibilities and the carnage - Elias, probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who was sent to Rampton, knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and his thirteen-year-old brother, Cyrus, who hid could deliver information in a shed until the police found himway I could understand.}}{{Frontpage|author=Sunny Singh|title=Hotel Arcadia|rating=3. Twenty years later, Cyrus 5|genre=Thrillers |summary=The Hotel Arcadia is a forensic psychologist and he's luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been told that his brother is being releasedviolently taken over by a terrorist group. Can Cyrus forgive Hiding from the sinner whilst having to live terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a daily basis with wartime photographer and Abhi, the results of the crime? hotel manager. Can he bear As Abhi continues to try to have Elias living care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the same house? hotel, he forms a bond with Sam 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. How 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 his lodger, twenty-one-year-old Evie Cormac, cope?be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=086154742X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=140595115X1529153298|title=A Stranger on BoardThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Cameron WardJennie Godfrey|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Right from the beginningIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, we know this will honestly...) She's not turn out wellwhat's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Eight days into the trip Well, they've been murdered, but to deliver the superyacht have 'disappeared'doesn'Escapet sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she' s overheard that her father wants to Antigua, all 300 tonnes and six decks will be floundering without power in move the Atlanticfamily 'Down South'. Those of the crew who are left will be cowering in fear When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a fellow crew member tries to pick them offfrightening, foreign place, one by onebest avoided. Some are already dead. They are three days from shore For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and there is no way of making contactshe'll do anything to prevent that. But letShe's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's go back stopped talking - to when all this started, in Southamptonanyone.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=13985086321398524085|title=The Wilderness CureHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Mo WildeNicci French
|rating=5
|genre=LifestyleCrime|summary=It had been on the cards for a while Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but it was the week-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning strangely - her year of eating only wild foodhusband, Alec, is not. The end Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of NovemberGreg's father, Duncan Ackerley, particularly in Central Scotland the river. It was perhaps not an easy assumption for the best time police to start, in a world where the normal sores make that Duncan had been exacerbated by climate change, Brexit murdered Charlie and a pandemicthen committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. Wilde had a few advantages: the area around her was a known habitat The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with a variety their lives and wonder about what really happened.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035906708|title=Diva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=We tend to think of terrainsMaria 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. She had electricity which allowed Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to run a fridge, freezer and dehydratormake it more manageable in the States. She had a car When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - and fuel. Most importantly, she had shelter: this was not raised under the Nazi occupation by a plan to ''live'' wild just to live off its producemother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1635864674Christopher Edge|title=Tomato Love: 44 Mouthwatering Recipes for Salads, Sauces, Stews, and More|author=Joy HowardBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=CookeryConfident Readers|summary=Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they'Think re looking forward to lots of it exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the movie 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 no-whining diningthey lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738}}{{Frontpage|author=Rachel Greenlaw|title=Compass and Blade|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.''
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241989027James Sherwood Metts|title=We All Have Our Secrets|author=Jane CorryPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=Harold Gentle advertised Things have been a bit sticky for live-in help the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as he was failing they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to cope at Willowmead House on his own. His advert was fairly specific: he was a retired lawyer needing help but he also spoke think of the ability other, new ways to cook a good steakspend time, enjoy decent wine and be free from any food fadsalong came an awful pandemic. The first person who came to the house Life was Francoisepretty much shut down and, a French woman in her early twentiesalong with it, who fit all the bill perfectly. She got the job but Francoise didn't know about the advert: she was there for a completely different reason. Emily Gentle is Harold's daughter and she came to Willowmead House because she was running away from a problem in London. Emily's a midwife and her last shift had seen her lacking concentration and a complaint had been mademany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426
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{{Frontpage
|author=Ewald Arenz and Rachel Ward (translator)Matthew Tree|title=Tasting SunlightWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Sally is a teenager who has run away from an anorexia treatment clinic. She just Timothy Wyndham wants space, and for people nothing more than to stop questioning her, tiptoeing around herbe different from his father, and trying to fix her without ever truly understanding her. She finds herself on some farmland with a woman called Liss who is in her forties drunk and seems to live alone. Liss is unlike chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any other adult Sally has ever metof his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. She just accepts Sally as she is, giving her a room So Tim applied himself to sleep inhis studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and the space to just be. As they work together on the farm, a closeness develops between them, becoming a beautiful, powerful friendshipset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn=1914585143B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jennifer MasonA G Slatter|title=Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell MysteryThe Briar Book of the Dead|rating=45|genre=General FictionFantasy|summary=''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a womenThere's track coach with a yen part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-however long I can. This secret magic of-the-art S&M dungeonmy own, a man serving a life sentence in Alabamaall mine, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on at last. I just want to enjoy it for a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia..while.''
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Will Brooker1529900360|title=The Truth About Lisa JewellGhost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=54|genre=BiographyCrime|summary=Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the most successful British authors IIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brookers fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, one of the thousands of less successful authors I quite confidently never have readSturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. This book starts with the two meeting each other, as well, His assertions that there were only open-and shows how 2021 drew -shut cases which didn't need the two closer and closer togetherhelp of a psychologist only worked for a while. The meeting was some unspecified combinationFinally, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, the words of her latest book she was recitingRobin, and her being in a Delaware''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the author events I get to attend), but pulled Brookers partner, a professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, down nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the rabbit-hole involvement was something that is Jewell's diverse outputthe man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to follow her through Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a year remote property in Bel Air. He was the published authorheir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's life, working to make a success of the latest title, and struggling with not the next in lineItalian. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is But which of them was the result.|isbn=1529136024primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18011092651529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The CompanionSecret Life of a Vet|author=Lesley ThomsonSion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=CrimeAnimals and Wildlife|summary=James Ritchie thought of himself as ''Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a punctual man who was inexplicably never on time'GP and Rowlands didn' and he was - as usual - late t want to pick up follow in his sonfootsteps, Wilbur, for their 'boys' day out'. These were always days which appealed more to James than to Wilbur and, competing for particularly when he considered the boystrain that being on-call put on his father's attention, his mother, Anna, promised him a roast dinner when life. When he was seventeen he returned. The dinner would never be served, as James and Wilbur are took the victims opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a double stabbing on vet and was convinced this was the beachjob for him. The case falls to DI Toni Kemp of Sussex policeBefore long, he was at Liverpool University. SheIt hadn's feeling the pressuret - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. You can always tell - she shoplifts Snickers Bars when the going gets toughIf anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=152941363X0861541774|title=To Kill a Troubadour (A Bruno, Chief Nye of Police Novel)Pheasants|author=Martin WalkerSteve Burrows|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=DCI Domenic Jejeune''Nobody knows what the truth is any more.'' Bruno Courrèges is the police chief for St Denis s close friend and much of the Vézère valley and works closely former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with Commissaire Jean-Jaques Jalipeau (known as 'JJ')an old ally, the head of detectives for the départment of the DordogneGuy Trueman. They're not just policemen Maik was involved in a street brawl - they're both deeply committed to the wellhe would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife -being and prosperity of this most beautiful part of Francehe killed a Ghurka. The discovery of an oldInitially, stolen Peugeot, crashed and abandoned in he faced a ditch wouldn't normally charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have worried them so much had it not been for planned to murder the strange bullet, with Russian letters stamped on the base, which they found in the carman. Oh, and there was a golf ball too, which didn't belong to the owner of Now he could be facing the cardeath penalty. A golf bag would be a good place Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to hide help as any interference from another police force could provoke a sniperdiplomatic incident and wouldn's weapont help Danny at all. Was there going to be an attempt to kill someone, or were the detectives being pushed in a certain direction?
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241542405Alexander McCall Smith|title=Meredith Alone|author=Claire AlexanderThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When we first meet Meredith Maggs it's Wednesday 14 November 2018 The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and she's not left her home for 1,214 days. She'd ''like'' operating as an alternative to: all the online apps in factproviding a more personal, she so nearly doestailored service. Her outdoor clothes are on Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and she's even considered which shoes look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to wear if she's going Canada to catch her trainget away for a while. ThenKatie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, she can'tand so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. She simply can't force herself And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to leave 44 Scotland Street and the safety of her homeIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. She's fortunate that she Katie has no experience in running a good friendbusiness, Sadieor in match-making, who visits regularly with but Ness has full confidence in her two childrenabilities, James and Matilda. Sadiethere's a cardiac nurse and full of sound common sense. In fact it was Sadie who gave Meredith always her cat, Fred. Groceries are online deliveries very helpful (and there's also an internet-based support group where you'll find Meredith as JIGSAWGIRLrather handsome) neighbour, so you can guess what she does in her spare time. Then Tom McDermott arrives. He's from Holding HandsWilliam, to lend a charity which supports people with problems such as Meredith's.hand…|isbn=1846976596
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09Y451X9K0811771741|title= Greetings, aliens!: (do pop in InstaKnits for tea)Baby|author=Richard F WalkerMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrafts|summary= Melissa Leapman's 'Anything can happen at 'InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a birthday partycollection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the 'long, particularly when the birthday boy is the young Lord cosy afternoons in front of the Manorfire' variety. But when an eerie signal is picked up in The projects are divided by the early time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, George and his new girlfriend, the vivacious Lady Antoniafive to ten hours, embark on a quest ten to uncover its incredible messagetwenty hours and more than twenty hours. Things get complicated when some total spoilsport lets All the cat out of the bag projects are attractive, modern and the world goes into a state of panicuseable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects'but that' Could it be? Could it? Have aliens reached out and contacted Earth? George and Antonia find themselves lifted out of their privileged lives of parties and drunken shenanigans and catapulted into the world of advanced science, secret agents.and politicians hungry for powers me being picky.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Darren ShanDean Koontz|title= Archibald Lox and the Sinkhole to Hell: Archibald Lox series, book 7 The Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersParanormal|summary= SoBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. We're back Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to the Merge with the first chapter in the third volume of Darren Shanhis home, and it's saga of Archibald Loxpossible 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 young man who can pick nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the locks of portals from our world delivery to anotherhis house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called the ''Merge''. Since his last adventureSpike, Archie who has persuaded his foster parents into been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a slightly uneasy truce on the topic good person. Spike is going to take care of his regular disappearances. They don't ask too many questions Benny, and Archie has settled into a fairly peaceful routine will certainly take care of visiting WinstonBenny's enemies, his lock-picking mentor in the ''Merge'' and showing Kojoif he, the young guardianBenny, around our world of the Bornand Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. |isbn= B09Z2MTCZD1662500491
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{{Frontpage
|author=John Henry PhillipsAdam Stower|title=The SearchMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryConfident Readers |summary=Archaeology cannot Murray is supposed to be child's playa humble, tidy and friendly cat, when you're scraping in the dirt looking one who is able to find what you can findsleep and eat and eat and sleep and, often knowing there should be something there but not always confident what. Archaeology must be a fair bit harder when you set out to find some specific thing. This book is a case of the latterwell, as our author promises to locate the topic whatever takes his fancy next of the titular searchtwo. And But he really hasn't made it easy for himself – the search area is s a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a wide onehyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the target might catflap they both use can chuck them out, not exist any more – ohinto the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it's underwaterdrops them into a Viking land, when he cannot dive. Latching on to where a particular D-Day veteran through helping the heroic old man's visit back to Francetroll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, our author has promised to find the landing craft that delivered him to Normandybe honest, but he's turned up and that he was lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. The secondary aim is to erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, the vast majority of whom perished. Who else would make such promises 'll have to someone in their nineties?do…|isbn=14721461820008561249
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{{Frontpage
|rating=4
|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=Can you make a ''A news vendor Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is crying out the headlines in question should you make it? Or is the middle of question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the night; a wheelchair user loses touch with reality when he tries walking around in his imagination; a stickler answer for correct grammar goes back in time to correct an iconic quote; a volunteer teacher proves the ideal person to have around in a lawless village; the new boy on the pub football team is very useful with his feet, and awfully familiar…''both could well be.... no.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18009012321529431735|title=Stitched Up|author=Steve Cole|rating=5|genre=Dyslexia Friendly|summary=Twelve-year-old Hanh wanted to be a fashion designer. Life in the rural village where she lived with her family was happy, if not prosperous, so when the smartly-dressed man and woman came to the village to offer Hahn a job in Hanoi it was an opportunity not to be missed. Some money changed hands and Hanh was on the mini-bus to Hanoi. Only, Hanh and the other girls were not going to work in a shop, they were to work in virtual slavery in an illegal garment factory. You know those jeans you really wanted: the ones with intricate embroidery and beading on the legs? The ones with the artfully-placed rips and distressed seams that felt so soft when you touched them? It's quite possible that Hanh and her co-workers made them.}}{{FrontpageWinter Visitor|author=Daisy Hildyard|title=EmergencyJames Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Part of It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the Oslo Detectives series, this crime story is a mixture of police procedural and thrillermore surprising. Beginning with He'd been exiled on the death of Costa del Sol as a young woman in wanted drug smuggler for a carpark, that looks very much like an overdose, it unravels into decade. The return has come about because he's had a farletter from his ex-reaching investigation of murder, fraudwife, saying that she's ill and international pharmaceutical dealingshasn't long to live. Our two detectives are Gunnarstranda It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and Frolich, who end up working separately on the case as Gunnarstranda remains sent to a watery grave in Norway whilst Frolich is led to Africa as they follow the twists and turns boot of the investigationa stolen Ford Sierra. Gunnarstranda and Frolich are tenacious, chasing down the truth in increasingly difficult, frustrating circumstances, trying hard Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to uncover the truth as they are sure that something much bigger, and much more dangerous, is going on.|isbn=1914585127home?
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008541477Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Clarice Bean: Scram!|author=Lauren ChildThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It was Eli is a hot summer busy lad – by day right an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a helper at the beginning of the summer holidays dessert cafe his gran owns and Clarice Bean was bored: ''Nothing ever happens except for sometimesruns... And only on rare-sh occasions Eli lives with his lovely gran, which too – for there is hardly ever.'' There are seven members of a generation missing in the Bean family living in the house: Grandad (who lives on the ground floor because he's wobbly), Mum and Dad, Clarice's older brother, Kurt and younger brother, Minal Cricket. There's also MarcieA few short years ago, whoEli's main claim parents were both lost to fame seems the titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to be that she steals navigate the batteries from Clarice's torch, which means that she can't read world in the airing cupboardcompany of a magical beast. Clarice would love This has made the race anathema to have someone who listened the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to hera confession from gran, rather than wanting Eli knows his only hope is to talkdare to enter what he most hates, but with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only one who does that is Granny and she lives in New York. The Bean family is ''different''thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0711266204178763681X|title=The Secret Life of Birds|author=Moira Butterfield and Vivian Mineker (illustrator)|rating=5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=I have recently discovered a great pleasure: I sit and watch the vast numbers of birds which visit our garden on a daily basis. An hour can pass without my noticing. I've established which species feed from the ground, which pop to the feeders Knife Skills for a quick snatch of some food and who settles in for a good munch but I wish I was more knowledgeable. It would have been wonderful if, as a child, I'd had access to a book such as ''The Secret Life of Birds''. So – what is it?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1737030942|title=Bag O'GoodiesBeginners|author=Jolly Walker BittickOrlando Murrin
|rating=4
|genre= AnthologiesCrime|summary=Sometimes, you deserve Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. He didn't really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a treat way of getting both men and mine was Jolly Walker Bittickwomen to do what he wanted. Paul 's 'somehow'Bag O'Goodiesgot the impression that he''. I first encountered his writing about a year ago, when I read his [[Cape Henry House by Jolly Walker Bittick|Cape Henry House]]d be at the school to assist Paul, who had a rollicking tale of what happens when five young men find a base for their partying. Right nowbroken arm, I but it didn't want a fullturn out that way. The teaching -length novel, so I turned to this anthology of verse and short storiesthe problems - are all his own. BittickThe one thing he hadn's writing has matured - and so have his characterst expected was for someone to turn up dead. Well.Unfortunately, he was the person who discovered the body and everyone knows that the police consider that person to be the prime suspect.. most of them!
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{{Frontpage
|author=Caryl Lewis and George ErmosSarah Marsh|title=SeedA Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Marty has two parental figures in his life, and they both might be thought After a bout of scarlet fever as complete embarrassmentsa child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. His grandfather runs an allotment Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, and manages to stink the entire town out from it everything about her life changes. Living in a time when he douses it in fish guts each spring to fertilise his vegetables. His mother somehow combines the dual roles use of housebound failure and hoarder – while she seems sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to do nothing and hasn't left the building in years a school where she has still managed is taught to fill it to the brim with junklip read, but physically restrained from signing. What Marty's classmates don't know about this they can draw lines to from how poor Marty always looks From here, with his one she ends up in another school uniform built from lost propertystudying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. We see him as once again At the council threaten her same time, Bell is working on other inventions and him with evictionideas, and as he celebrates his birthday with the gift from his grandfather Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of a solitary plant seedespionage.|isbn=15290776641035401614
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sophie Cameron1803816759|title=Our Sister, AgainThe Unravelling|author=Will Gibson|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=After IslaIt's older sister Flora dies, her family struggle 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the wealthy and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a bit of adventure and to find a way forwardget stuck into some really gritty crime detection. In particularBut then something goes horribly wrong with the AI system that now runs everything, making life easier for many, Isla's mum who can’t seem and riots start to be able to let her daughter gospread. When Isla passes her mum's details onto a support group she finds onlineFinally, she thinks they might be able Joe gets to helpdo some real policing. But actually, it turns out they are part In the aftermath of an experimental company who offer the family the chance rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and Joe is assigned to have Flora back again, in robot formbring her home. But this wonJoe isn't just be a lookthe only one trying to save Suki -Dylan, a-like. They use all of Flora's online history, and interviews with family British superfan and friendstech nerd, and through this data they will recreate Flora as closely as possibleis also on the case. But what will What went wrong? Did the system fail or was it really mean for the family, to have Flora backhacked? And how is it really Flora at allSuki's kidnapping connected?|isbn=1788953916
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=13985075041529421284|title=Cold ReckoningLaying Out the Bones|author=Russ ThomasKate Webb
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=DS Adam Tyler never believed It was one of those flash downpours that his father committed suicide the British weather often delivers in a heatwave. In a gully, a human skeleton came to the surface and for forensic testing proved the last sixteen body to be Lee Geary, who had disappeared nine years heearlier. He's d been searching for evidence to prove that he's right. When a frozen body was found in Damflask Reservoirknown drug user and had learning disabilities, there was so it could have been a link back to a cold simple case from 2002. There didnof misadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn't immediately seem to be any connection with DI Richard Tyler's death but Adam Tyler senses convinced. Geary was a link to the case his father townie, so what was investigating before he died. Above all there's a growing sense that doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? There are connections to the criminality suicide of Det Supt Stevens is going Holly Gilbert and to be brought out into two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the opentime. Perhaps Tyler is going Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad of the Major Crimes Review Unit (that's cold cases to get the answers he needs?you and me) investigate.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=07278505470571379559|title=Blind Justice (DS McAvoy 10)|author=David Mark|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=Acting DI Aector McAvoy hadn't even had time for breakfast when the call came through. A body had been found in the roots The House of a fallen tree at Brantingham, near Hull. When he gets to the scene, he will find what greets him is even worse than he could have imagined. A young man's corpse is entangled with the roots of a newly-fallen tree – the roots have grown through him – and two silver Roman coins have been nailed through his eyes. It would seem that this was done whilst the man was still alive. McAvoy makes a promise to the victim: I will find answers. You will know justice. But justice always comes at a cost and this time the cost might be to McAvoy's own family.}}{{FrontpageBroken Bricks|author=Natalia Garcia Freire|title=This World Does Not Belong To UsFiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Early comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. I will agree with the first – tremendous is no understatement – but 'a delight'The House of Broken Bricks'' is perhaps using the expression story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in a way IJamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it'm not familiar withs stood the passage of time, storms and floods. I have Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to confess my ignorance of complete the Spanishdelivery rounds -language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation hereand to bring in sufficient money. From the little I They have read (in translationtwin boys - Sonny and Max, I the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't read Spanish) believe that they're related, much less twins and there does seem to be a tendency towards the fantastical – the mystical realism's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny. |isbn=0861541901
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Ann Sei Lin1529425867|title= Rebel SkiesLost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Simon Mason|rating= 4.5|genre= TeensCrime|summary= Kurara has spent her entire life as a servant on the MidoriIn Oxford, a massive dining hall floating in the sky where soldiers there are two D I Wilkins. Raymond Wilkins is of the Empire come to drink Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and make merry between their conquestsalways exquisitely dressed. However D I Ryan Wilkins, son of Ryan and father of Ryan, when a man named Himura arrives to tell her that she is a Crafter like him, someone with the power to form paper into whatever she desires – a power sought after all across the Empirenot. He asks her to come with him, to leave the life 's not any of dreary servitude that is all she has knownthose things. Well, soon Kurara won He't have any say in the matters white, because the Midori is destroyed by a monstrous paper spirit known as originated from a shikigamitrailer park, barely educated (reading's not ''really'' his thing) and his wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and she is forced trackies. They're usually in lime green or acid yellow. You might wonder if you're being introduced to flee out into a police procedural written for laughs. Well, you're not. The two men are just different sides of the worldsame policing coin. She joins Himura aboard Sometimes the Orihime, a sky-ship whose express purpose is to hunt down shikigami, and a whole world of adventure awaits her…|isbn=1406399590combination works brilliantly well. Sometimes it's problematic.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Patrice LawrenceMosby Woods|title=Needle|rating=3|genre=Teens|summary=Brave. Charlene, the 'heroine' of this piece is extremely hard for some people to like, characters and readers both. Kicked out of multiple homes and schools, she's fostering with a pleasant yoga tutor, Annie, and has taken up residence in her son Blake's old room while he's at uni. Such a tempestuous personality may be in need of a comfort blanket, you might perhaps think, and the creation of one such item is part of the plot here, as Charlene is a wonder knitter, and is making something full of love for her younger sister – a younger sister she's allowed contact with no more. We see Charlene prove her belligerence with a store detective, and then force people to give her two days off school, when she shouts someone down as expletively ignorant. And then... well, what exactly happens is not for me to say, only to remark how sharp and pointy those knitting needles can be...|isbn=1800901011}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1405940980|title=The Birdcage|author=Eve ChaseA Whirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=ItThe West isn's t the 7th of January 2019 and we know that a body has been pulled out of dominant force it once was. Nobody in the sea at Zennor in Cornwall. We don't know whose body West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is. Four days earlier, Flora, Kat and Lauren had gathered at Rock point at the request best course of their father, Charlie Finch, a famous artistaction. The girls are actually ''half''-sisters and their dates of birth Governments are embarrassingly closeflailing. Finch was known for his fecundityA war here, if not a push for his fidelityclimate action there. It's been a long time since the girls have been at Rock Point together: just over twenty years agoA feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, at the time of the total eclipse, something happened. Kat and Flora were obviously involved but Lauren there was a victim and it's left her very wary of her sistersman with precognition.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1787634906|title=No Less Imagine the Devil|author=Stuart MacBride|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=We're strategic advantage in Oldcastle and Malcolm is in troublethis asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. He's That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in an abandoned house and he's being threatened by two young peoplehistory. One is Allegra (we'll soon learn Imagine then, that she's Allegra Dean-Edwards) and Hugothis man loses this ability. It seems that Allegra bought Malcolm a new coat What would governments do to keep him warm (she often does this for homeless people, apparently) but she'd put a tracking device in get it so that she and Hugo could find out where he was sleeping. It won't be long before the police realise that Malcolm was one of their own: not many other people are going to have the Oldcastle police crest tattooed on their backs.back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1
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