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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=David Solomons0241636604|title=The Trading Game: A Beginner's Guide to Ruling the GalaxyConfession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersAutobiography|summary=Gavin 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 being followedthe East End, seemingly constantlywhere he was familiar with violence, by the new (very annoying) girl at schoolpoverty and injustice. Only this is not your typical boy meets girl storyThere was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Because in this instance, the girl in question Stevenson is Niki, bright - extremely bright - and she is he has a galactic princess (no, really, she is!) facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. So It was his ability at what will Gavin do when he becomes embroiled in a situation wherewas, potentiallyessentially, Earth and everyone on it will be blown to smithereensa card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, all because of Niki?|isbn=0857639935this turned into permanent employment as a trader.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alex Cotter1035021803|title=The Mermaid CallAntique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Vivien knows that mermaids donIt't exist. But she also knows they have s twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to exist – at least in the public eyeEnglish country village where she grew up. For there would be nothing to Lake Splendour – She's back now because of a far northern English resort – without themrequest for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. A hundred years Freya's former mentor and change agoCarole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, two teenaged girls allegedly spent months with mermaidsis dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, but were forced to return to help out with say the Great War effortleast. They also showed female emancipationArthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, which helped create the town's tourism industryshe feels, now faded and falling apart but once a feminist success storylet her down badly. Alice, a girl who stumbles into Vivien's gran's tourist shop one dayEven though they were in business together as antique hunters, knows she certainly wants mermaids has not felt able to exist – be near the man or pursue the profession she thinks her family's black sheep died searching for them, or else was just too successful in her huntloved. When After the shysplit, she worked in a cafe, doubting Thomasina that is Vivien collides with met and married James (on the rebound from the exuberantlove of her life, gung-ho Alice, what on earth – or perhaps in water – will they find?|isbn=1839941901who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
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|isbn=1739805100AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Loving the EnemyAll Tomorrow's Futures: Building bridges in a time of warFictions that Disrupt|author=Andrew MarchBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyScience Fiction|summary= ''Loving Opening up new ways of thinking about the Enemyshape of things to come.'I' tells the quite extraordinary story ve heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of author Andrew Marchtechnology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's grandparents, who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went advantageous to Dresden to teach in me but I'm left with the early days feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of the Nazi regime in the 1930sit is - frankly - quite frightening. Fred Of course, a sensitive I could research the possibilities and thoughtful man, had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the timelatest conspiracy theorist. Fred's attempts to separate individual I needed people from ideology weren't universally successful but he did make friendships I knew I could trust and connections that lasted for who could deliver information in a lifetimeway I could understand.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0B575J99NSunny Singh|title=Beneath the Porticoes|author=Brooke AdamsHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Women's FictionThrillers |summary=Elizabeth Miller was thirty-four and The Hotel Arcadia is a teacher at luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a prestigious girl's school in Yorkterrorist group. It was ''comfortable'' but she longed for something more in life. She'd ''still not found Hiding from the right vocation nor met the right man'' terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and now was Abhi, the time to make a changehotel manager. She needed challenges. There was a little trepidation when she applied As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the professoressa job residents who are still alive in Bologna. After the hotel, he forms a telephone interviewbond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, she was offered the position and it wasnkeeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what't long before she was exploring the beautiful citys happened through her photography. There were some natural doubts 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 her first class but it went surprisingly wellthey are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=086154742X
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|isbn=15291258981529153298|title=Godmersham ParkThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Gill HornbyJennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She'If it were s not for the casual dereliction of the odd gentlemanwhat's worrying Miv's dutyfamily, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, there would no women but to teach well-bred daughters at allhave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because sheAnne Sharpe was thirty-one years old when she arrived at Godmersham Park s overheard that her father wants to take up move the position of governess to twelve-year-old Fanny Austenfamily 'Down South'. She had no experience of teaching but this was When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a case of necessityfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. Until For Miv, the death of move would mean leaving her motherbest friend, Sharon, Anne had a comfortable life and was loved by both parents although her father was frequently absent from the householdshe'll do anything to prevent that. When She's not worried about the dangers or that her mother died, her father cast her off and would have nothing more Mum's stopped talking - to do with her. No explanation was offered but she would receive an annuity of £35 a year. Her maid, Agnes, would receive nothing but was fortunately taken in by some neighboursanyone.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Lev Parikian |title=Light Rains Sometimes Fall|rating=4.5|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary= If you’re a writer yourself, or an aspiring writer, or someone who pretends to write, then you know that there are unnumbered types of books. Some you read for fun, some for distraction, some for vicarious emotion, some to learn from in a random way, some for focussed research, and some because they are, broadly speaking, the kind of thing you think you might like to write. Or, indeed, are actually trying to write.|isbn=1783966386}}{{Frontpage|isbn=07515815771398524085|title=Lying Beside YouHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Michael RobothamNicci French
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Elias Haven murdered his parents and his twin sisters two days after his nineteenth Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthdayparty but never turned up. Voices told him to do it. Only two people survived the carnage - EliasHer children, who was sent to Ramptonsons Niall, Paul and his thirteenOllie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but -yearstrangely -old brotherher husband, CyrusAlec, who hid in a shed until the police found himis not. Twenty years laterShortly afterwards, Cyrus is a forensic psychologist Etty and heGreg, find the body of Greg's been told that his brother is being releasedfather, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. Can Cyrus forgive It was an easy assumption for the sinner whilst having police to live on a daily basis with the results of the crime? Can make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he bear to have Elias living in couldn't stand the same house? guilt. How will his lodger, twenty-one-year-old Evie Cormac, cope?The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=140595115X1035906708|title=A Stranger on BoardDiva|author=Cameron WardDaisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Right from the beginningWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, we know this will not turn out wellin December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Eight days into the trip Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to deliver the superyacht ''Escape'Callas' to Antigua, all 300 tonnes and six decks will be floundering without power make it more manageable in the AtlanticStates. Those of When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the crew Nazi occupation by a mother who are left will be cowering in fear a fellow crew member tries to pick them off, one by one. Some are already dead. They are three days from shore mercilessly exploited her and there is made no way secret of making contact. But let's go back to when all this startedher preference for her elder sister, in SouthamptonJackie.
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|isbnauthor=1398508632Christopher Edge|title=The Wilderness Cure|author=Mo WildeBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=54|genre=LifestyleConfident Readers|summary=It had been on the cards Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a while but it was movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the week-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year nickname of eating only wild food'The Black Hole'. The end All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of Novemberexciting films, and many, many snacks! However, particularly in Central Scotland was perhaps not as the best time to startmovie starts, in a world where the normal sores had been exacerbated by climate changethey very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, Brexit and a pandemicthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. Wilde had a few advantages: But as they lurch from one film genre to the area around her was a known habitat with a variety of terrains. next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? She had electricity which allowed her Will they ever get back to run a fridgethe cinema, freezer and dehydrator. She had a car - and fuel. Most importantly, she had shelter: this was not a plan to ''live'' wild just to live off its produce.their real lives?|isbn=1839942738
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1635864674Rachel Greenlaw|title=Tomato Love: 44 Mouthwatering Recipes for Salads, Sauces, Stews, Compass and More|author=Joy HowardBlade|rating=43.5|genre=CookeryTeens|summary=''Think I can hear the song of it as no-whining diningthe sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.''
We know it's Rosevear, a fruit rather than a vegetable but remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the fact that so many people get confused just goes to show how versatile rocks and plundering the tomato wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is. Then there are all one of the different types, not seven who swim out to mention survey the cultivars - ruins – rescuing any survivors and you begin to understand why Joy Howard says any treasure that she hasn't met one she didn't lovelies within. I'd argue with her there - I have no affection for But when the ones you find in Council Watch lays a trap to end the supermarket ''next'' to wrecking, they capture the ones labelled island'grown for flavours leader and Mira' s father. Desperate to distinguish them save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the ones that have obviously just been grown for profitsea. PersonallyWith only nine days to unearth what might save her father, I'd prefer a tin as her journey takes her from the watched streets of tomatoes foreign islands to those - and Howard makes good use the heart of these. Shethe smuggler's not territory, Mira must be determined to stop at all precious if you get nothing to save the future of her home and the tasteones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
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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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|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.''
This is just Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a sample town under the protection of the cast Briar's, a family of characters witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader, and settings in PreposterousEllie takes her place beside her. As you can seechallenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise putting her at the heart of a maelstrom of this mystery story goes like this.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=B09STS96HS1803364548
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|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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|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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|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 thatCould 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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|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
|author=Fiona Longmuir|title=Looking for Emily|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Meet Lily. She and her mother have just moved from a city to a tiny seaside town called Edge, and everyone from said mother to her teacher are making demands of Lily that she make new friends. It turns out that she doesn't have any say in the matter, for while pretending when phoning home that she was with someone called Emily, she is unaware her neighbour, Sam, is just about to make herself known, and in a big way. But where does Emily come from? Well, Lily used that name because of what she'd just stumbled into – a mysterious collection of the most mundane objects, in some converted houses behind a most unassuming door, in a place calling itself 'The Museum of Emily'. Sam is completely unaware of this 'museum', too, leaving the two girls to make sure they leave no stone unturned in finding what's behind the intrigue...|isbn=1839942754}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B09XZMCDVFB0C47LV1PC|title=Stories: 13 tantalising talesFragility|author=Richard F WalkerMosby Woods
|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.
This collection of thirteen short stories by Richard F Walker has a lot to offer the eclectic reader. Tying them together ''Fragility'' is set as the idea that remarkable and strangecity of Portland, even miraculousOregon, things can happen cautiously begins to ordinary people. And that ordinary doesn't mean boring or uninteresting. Form and tone varies so this little treasury of short fiction is never boring and you're never quite sure what's coming next.emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
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|isbn=18009012321529431735|title=Stitched UpThe Winter Visitor|author=Steve ColeJames Henry|rating=54|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyCrime|summary=Twelve-year-old Hanh It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted to be drug smuggler for a fashion designerdecade. Life in the rural village where The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she lived with her family was happy, if not prosperous, so when the smartly-dressed man 's ill and woman came to the village to offer Hahn a job in Hanoi it was an opportunity not hasn't long to be missedlive. Some money changed hands and Hanh was on the mini-bus It's hard to Hanoi. Onlyfeel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, Hanh stripped to his underwear and the other girls were not going sent to work a watery grave in the boot of a shop, they were to work in virtual slavery in an illegal garment factorystolen Ford Sierra. You know those jeans you really wanted: the ones with intricate embroidery and beading on the legsIs it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home? 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.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Daisy HildyardAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=EmergencyThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Literary FictionConfident Readers|summary=The summary of this book doesn't come close to explaining what Eli is done a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a helper at the premisedessert cafe his gran owns and runs.|isbn=1913097811}} {{Frontpage |author=Sally Oliver |title=The Weight of Loss |rating=4 |genre=Literary Fiction |summary= Marianne Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is grievinga generation missing in the family. Traumatised after A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the death of her sistertitular race, she awakes a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to find strange, thick black hairs sprouting from navigate the world in the bones company of her spine which steadily increase in size and volumea magical beast. Her GP, diagnosing This has made the race anathema to the odd phenomenon as pair – but when a physical reaction bad incident at the eatery leads to her griefa confession from gran, recommends she go to stay at Nede, an experimental new treatment centre in Wales. Yet something strange Eli knows his only hope is happening to Marianne and the other patients at Nede: a metamorphosis of a kind. As Marianne's memories threaten dare to overwhelm herenter what he most hates, Nede offers her release from this cycle with the sole aim the prize of memory and pain—but magic at the end – the only at a terrible price: that of identity itselfthing to possibly save his gran.|isbn= 086154112X 0571382231
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Kjell Ola Dahl and Don Bartlett (translator)178763681X|title=Little DrummerKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Orlando Murrin|rating=34
|genre=Crime
|summary=Part of the Oslo Detectives series, this crime story is 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 mixture way of police procedural getting both men and thrillerwomen to do what he wanted. Beginning with Paul ''somehow'' got the death of a young woman in a carpark, impression that looks very much like an overdosehe'd be at the school to assist Paul, it unravels into who had a far-reaching investigation of murderbroken arm, fraud, and international pharmaceutical dealingsbut it didn't turn out that way. Our two detectives are Gunnarstranda The teaching - and Frolich, who end up working separately on the case as Gunnarstranda remains in Norway whilst Frolich is led problems - are all his own. The one thing he hadn't expected was for someone to Africa as they follow turn up dead. Unfortunately, he was the twists and turns of person who discovered the investigation. Gunnarstranda body and Frolich are tenacious, chasing down everyone knows that the truth in increasingly difficult, frustrating circumstances, trying hard police consider that person to uncover be the truth as they are sure that something much bigger, and much more dangerous, is going onprime suspect.|isbn=1914585127
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008541477Sarah Marsh|title=Clarice Bean: Scram!|author=Lauren ChildA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=It was After a hot summer day right at the beginning bout of the summer holidays and Clarice Bean was bored: ''Nothing ever happens except for sometimes... And only on rare-sh occasionsscarlet fever as a child, which is hardly everEllen Lark loses her hearing.'' There are seven members Suddenly plunged into a world of the Bean family living in the house: Grandad (who lives on the ground floor because he's wobbly)silence, Mum and Dad, Clarice's older brother, Kurt and younger brother, Minal Cricketeverything about her life changes. There's also MarcieLiving in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, who's main claim Ellen is sent to fame seems a school where she is taught to be that she steals the batteries lip read, but physically restrained from Clarice's torchsigning. From here, which means that she can't read ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the airing cupboarddeaf and using a system called Visible Speech. Clarice would love to have someone who listened to herAt the same time, rather than wanting to talkBell is working on other inventions and ideas, but the only one who does that is Granny and she lives Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in New York. The Bean family is ''different''a complicated tangle of espionage.|isbn=1035401614
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=07112662041803816759|title=The Secret Life of BirdsUnravelling|author=Moira Butterfield and Vivian Mineker (illustrator)Will Gibson|rating=54|genre=Children's Non-Science Fiction|summary=I have recently discovered It's 2038 and Joe is a great pleasure: I sit bored cop policing the wealthy and watch the vast numbers peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a bit of birds which visit our garden on a daily basisadventure and to get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. An hour can pass without my noticingBut then something goes horribly wrong with the AI system that now runs everything, making life easier for many, and riots start to spread. I've established which species feed from the groundFinally, which pop Joe gets to do some real policing. In the feeders for a quick snatch aftermath of some food the rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and who settles in for a good munch but I wish I was more knowledgeableJoe is assigned to bring her home. It would have been wonderful ifJoe isn't the only one trying to save Suki - Dylan, as a childBritish superfan and tech nerd, I'd had access to a book such as ''The Secret Life of Birds''is also on the case. So – what What went wrong? Did the system fail or was it hacked? And how is itSuki's kidnapping connected?
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17370309421529421284|title=Bag O'GoodiesLaying Out the Bones|author=Jolly Walker BittickKate Webb|rating=4.5|genre= AnthologiesCrime|summary=SometimesIt was one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in a heatwave. In a gully, you deserve a treat human skeleton came to the surface and mine was Jolly Walker Bittick's ''Bag O'Goodies''forensic testing proved the body to be Lee Geary, who had disappeared nine years earlier. I first encountered his writing about He'd been a year ago, when I read his [[Cape Henry House by Jolly Walker Bittick|Cape Henry House]]known drug user and had learning disabilities, so it could have been a rollicking tale simple case of what happens when five young men find a base for their partyingmisadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn't convinced. Right now, I didn't want Geary was a full-length noveltownie, so I turned what was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? There are connections to this anthology the suicide of verse Holly Gilbert and short storiesto two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the time. BittickLockyer and DC Gemma Broad of the Major Crimes Review Unit (that's writing has matured - cold cases to you and so have his characters. Well.me) investigate.. most of them!
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Caryl Lewis and George Ermos0571379559|title=SeedThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Marty has two parental figures ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in his life, and they both Jamaica: temperamentally she might be thought happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as complete embarrassmentsit might look, it's stood the passage of time, storms and floods. His grandfather runs an allotment Her husband, Richard, and manages to stink the entire town out from it when he douses it in fish guts each spring struggles to fertilise grow his vegetables. His mother somehow combines , to complete the dual roles of housebound failure delivery rounds - and hoarder – while she seems to do nothing bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and hasn't left the building in years she has still managed to fill it to Max, the brim with junkrainbow twins. What Marty Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's classmates Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't know about this believe that they can draw lines to from how poor Marty always looks're related, with his one school uniform built from lost property. We see him as once again the council threaten her much less twins and him there's an assumption when Max is out with eviction, and as he celebrates his birthday with the gift from mother that she's his grandfather of a solitary plant seednanny.|isbn=1529077664
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sophie Cameron1529425867|title=Our Sister, AgainLost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Simon Mason
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=After Isla's older sister Flora diesIn Oxford, there are two D I Wilkins. Raymond Wilkins is of Nigerian descent, her family struggle to find a way forwardBalliol educated and always exquisitely dressed. In particular D I Ryan Wilkins, son of Ryan and father of Ryan, Islais not. He's mum who can’t seem to be able to let her daughter gonot any of those things. When Isla passes her mum He's details onto white, originated from a support group she finds onlinetrailer park, she thinks they barely educated (reading's not ''really'' his thing) and his wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackies. They're usually in lime green or acid yellow. You might be able wonder if you're being introduced to helpa police procedural written for laughs. But actually Well, it turns out they you're not. The two men are part just different sides of an experimental company who offer the family same policing coin. Sometimes the chance to have Flora back again, in robot formcombination works brilliantly well. Sometimes it's problematic. But this won}}{{Frontpage|author=Mosby Woods|title=A Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= The West isn't just be the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, a look-a-likepush for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. They use all of Flora's online historyImagine then, and interviews there was a man with family and friends, and through precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in this data they asset; a man who can tell you what will recreate Flora as closely as possiblehappen given any set of circumstances. But what will it really mean for That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the familymost valuable asset in history. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability. What would governments do to have Flora get it back? And is it really Flora at all?|isbn=1788953916B0C9SNG8R1
}}

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