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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|isbn=37562287110241636604|title=CDCThe Trading Game: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'A Confession|author=Hans BodmerGary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryAutobiography|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you''The history 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 development of IT could fill books London School of several hundred pagesEconomics.'' Author Hans Bodmer Stevenson is quite right about thatbright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He has chosen also realised that most rich people expect poor people to tell us about the shortbe stupid. It was his ability at what was, but explosiveessentially, history of the Control Data Company, CDC, for whom he workeda card game which got him an internship with Citibank. It's a fascinating tale Eventually, told in this turned into permanent employment as a mixture of technological summary and wry anecdotetrader.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15293566601035021803|title=The SanctuaryAntique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=Emma HaughtonC L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=It was 's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the quiet which woke Zoey English country village where she grew up - or. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, ratherArthur Crockleford, is dead and the absence of circumstances seem suspicious, to say the noise which was a constant in New Yorkleast. Here it Arthur was silent and the heat was overwhelmingreason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. When Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she looked out of has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the window all profession she could see was the desertloved. How did she get here? Zoey was house-sitting for Uncle Dan and his two Manx cats and she remembered that she'd been out with Franny and Rocco last night. She knew that she'd had quite a lot to drink but how could she have got to After the desert from New York? She had no memory of getting on a plane but as split, she thought back, worked in a memory of sirenscafe, flashing lights met and of being pushed into a car snagged married James (on the edge rebound from the love of her mindlife, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover
|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''
I'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 technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher GoldenSunny Singh|title=Road of BonesHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=HorrorThrillers |summary=The Kolyma Highway… the 'Road of Bones'… the R504. Stretching for Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a thousand miles across Siberia, it's one of the world's most notorious routesterrorist group. For months of Hiding from the year it's a spread of sheet ice suspended above the permafrost surrounding itterrorists who are rampaging through, while its 'spring' sees it turn into a huge blodge of unremittingkilling everyone on site, apocalyptic-level mudthere is Sam, which dries into rutteda wartime photographer and Abhi, puddly dustthe hotel manager. I don't think google streetview updates it very often. Built because Stalin wanted so much uranium and other Siberian minerals, and because he wanted As Abhi continues to try to give too many people a lesson, it legendarily cost a life every metre it covers. You can easily find documentaries about it online, but that's a bit rich, care remotely for one of our main charactersthe residents who are still alive in the hotel, Felix 'Teig' Teigland, is a film-maker, doing he forms a recce bond with his cameraman buddy, John Prentiss – Sam who's mostly there refuses to encourage the project be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her room to fruition try to claw back some of the funds he'd invested in the paircapture what's prior TV projectshappened through her photography. They pick up their oh-so-chatty local guide, gain Although they only ever talk over the company of a local beautyphone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and fetch up at they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the guide's childhood villageterrorists. And that's where things start to go awry…|isbn=1803361476086154742X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18387761841529153298|title=Her Majesty the Queen Investigates: Murder Most RoyalThe List of Suspicious Things|author=S J BennettJennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=It''The Queen, like the sunrise s 1979 and the tidesMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, was generally a reliable way of marking timehonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv' It seemed to begin as a colds family, though. Women have been disappearing. Hardly surprisingWell, reallythey've been murdered, as Prince Philip had been suffering for a couple of days but seemed to be getting betterhave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Hopefully, the Queen thought, Miv's upset because she's overheard that her cold would go father wants to move the same wayfamily 'Down South'. SheWhen you'd probably caught it re from one of the great-grandchildrenYorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. UnfortunatelyFor Miv, it didn't get better and when the doctor called he diagnosed full-blown flu. She move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and the Duke were due she'll do anything to go to Sandringham by train prevent that day but the doctor put his foot down. HeShe'd have preferred that the queen have a few days' bed rest before venturing out but had to be satisfied with s not worried about the thought dangers or that theyher Mum'd go by helicopter the following day. It was annoying: people would be ready for her today and Her Majesty did not like s stopped talking - to disappointanyone.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Peter Owen Jones1398524085|title=Conversations with NatureHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Spirituality and ReligionCrime|summary= One of the comments made when I Charlotte Salter was offered this beautiful book for review was that itexpected at her husband's not very longfiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Having read the book twice overHer children, sons Niall, I'm brought back inescapably to the Spanish proverb that Life may be shortPaul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but it - strangely - her husband, Alec, is broadnot. In this case I Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Greg'm brought s father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was an easy assumption for the police to the idea make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the length of life is not the point; the point is its depthguilt. Peter Owen Jones dives deepThe Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.|isbn=1912992418
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=19164599431035906708|title=Squeakily BabyDiva|author=Beth WebbDaisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=Much We tend to think of Maria Callas as mothers love their babiesGreek, there's something they all dread - a squeakily baby. He's so tired but he can't - or won't - go she was born to sleep: insteadGreek parents in Manhattan, New York, he just lies on his blanket in December 1923 and ''wails''only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. The sea offers Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to help. It rocks Baby gently and the waves sing 'Callas'hush, hush''. Think of gentle wavelets falling onto a sandy beach and you have to make it more manageable in the sound perfectlyStates. The mermaids join When she was back in Athens - ''la lou, la lay...'' And supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a moment it seems to have worked as Baby closes his eyes. Then a seagull '''shouts''' mother who mercilessly exploited her and we know exactly what's going to happen nextmade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Robin StevensChristopher Edge|title=The Ministry of Unladylike ActivityBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=May Wong is Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a long way from her family in Hong Kongplace that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. She’s stuck in her schoolAll big movie fans, Deepdeanthey're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and desperate to get awaymany, and do something useful to help end the war and to get home. She just knows that she would make the perfect spymany snacks! And when she finds herself turned away by the Ministry, she takes matters into her own handsHowever, along with a boy she meets outside as the Ministrymovie starts, Eric. They both go undercover in a large country housethey very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, pretending to be evacuees, in and they are swept up into an attempt to prove that someone there is passing secrets to the Nazisadventure they couldn't even imagine. But there as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is a lot more going on in Elysium Hall than either them have imagined, and suddenly ? Will they find themselves in ever get back to the middle of a murder scenecinema, with even more to try and to unravel and solve.their real lives?|isbn=02414298621839942738
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1919635017Rachel Greenlaw|title=A Thief to Catch a Killer|author=Kitt TownsendCompass and Blade|rating=43.5
|genre=Teens
|summary= Solomon Klyne isn't 'I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.'' Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a bad ladtrap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, so why Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he running around London committing is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a series family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of robberies? And how did he learn foreign islands to crack safes? Youthe heart of the smuggler'll have to wait s territory, Mira must be determined to get an answer stop at nothing to save the second question because I avoid spoilers. But I'll answer future of her home and the first one: for his grandmother..ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1398515388James Sherwood Metts|title=The Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)Planet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary=First of all, it was Things have been a bit sticky for the earthquakeEarthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all thistechnological change and starting to think of other, in turnnew ways to spend time, caused the nuclear meltdownalong came an awful pandemic. The result Life was complete pretty much shut down and utter devastation, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily. The deaths were uncountable|isbn=1736128426}}{{Frontpage|author=Matthew Tree|title=We'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and the loss chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience storeself confidence. He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa So Tim applied himself to open his car door studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and Tamon the dog jumped inset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529153050A G Slatter|title=Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim BensonThe Briar Book of the Dead|rating=45|genre=HumourFantasy|summary=Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming '' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to seem more and more like an adrenaline sportmyself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I was nudged towards just want to enjoy it for a while.''Britain Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's Best Political Cartoons , a family of 2022witches 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 Ellie takes her place beside her. Sharp eyes will have noted that we're not yet through As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the year: dead, putting her at the cartoons run heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from 4 September 2021 one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to 31 August 2022. Who can imagine trust and determine what there will be to come in do as the 2023 edition?Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lisa Gray1529900360|title=The Dark RoomGhost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=What if you knew someone was dead, because youIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis'd watched them die several years ago, s fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but then you come across a photograph that seemed to show their murder happened in a different place he felt responsible and time? This is what happens even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to Leonard in this storyask for his help on difficult cases. He is an exHis assertions that there were only open-and-crime reporter shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a newspaperwhile. Finally, it was Robin, and since leaving journalism heDelaware's found himself an unusual hobby where he finds oldpartner, undeveloped rolls of film and develops them in his own dark room at homewho nudged Milo into asking for help again. One of these photographs turns out to show She knew that the involvement was something that the murder scene of a young woman he met some years agoman she loved needed. The next case did look simple, and who he ''thought'' he had watched die though. Two lovers were murdered in front the swimming pool of him one night a remote property in a hotelBel Air. He'd felt guilty ever since that night, was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and lost everything because of it - his fiancee and his career - but now finds himself wondering if she hadn't really died s not the night she Italian. But which of them was with him, what on earth actually happenedthe primary target?|isbn=154203535X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Natasha Hastings and Alex T Smith1529395224|title=The Miraculous SweetmakersLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Frost FairSecret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident ReadersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn''The River Thames had frozen t want to death follow in its sleep.'' And thus his footsteps, particularly when he considered the Frost Fair could happen – people trading strain that being on the completely iced-over river, like our heroine Thomasinacall put on his father's father life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with his gingerbread a family friend who was a vet and confectionery shopwas convinced this was the job for him. Thomasina will be working the Fair too – but her twin brother won'tBefore long, as he dies in Chapter Onewas at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a tragedy she feels no small guilt for, and which has made her father a sullen, closed shop – and her bed-bound mother has spoken not a word – not even opened her eyes, more or less – in the four years since, eitherchild. But into the dark, frosted London comes Inigo, with supreme magical powersIf anything, and a willingness to help Thomasina. Not only can he introduce her 'd wanted to the fantastical Other Frost Fair, using the river surface at night for no end of mystical beasts and characters and their happenings, but he has be a unique proposal for Thomasina, which will shake her world to its coreprofessional footballer.|isbn=0008496056
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams 0861541774|title=The Book A Nye of Hope Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=54|genre=Politics and Society Crime|summary= The done thing is DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to read meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a book all the way through before you sit down to review itstreet brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. I’m making an exception here Initially, because I don’t want he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to lose any of light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. Now he could be facing the experience of reading this amazing book, I want death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to capture it help as it hits meany interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all. And it is hitting me. This beautiful book has me in tears. |isbn=024147857X
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529504767Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Christmas Doll (The Repair Shop Stories)|author=Amy Sparkes and Katie HickeyPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=Susan was very young when she was evacuated from London The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in 1939 Edinburgh, run by Ness and nervous about how she would be greeted when she got operating as an alternative to her final destinationall the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. She needn't have worried though as Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she went to could come and look after the home of Mr and Mrs Russellbusiness, who couldn't have been kinder as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to herget away for a while. She even had her own room - all Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to herselfEdinburgh. Gradually she relaxed And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and began the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to enjoy her lifecharm. SheKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there'd help Mrs Russell with the baking s always her very helpful (and when it came rather handsome) neighbour, William, to Christmas Eve Susan and Mr Russell put the decorations on the Christmas tree. The best surprise happened the following morning.lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lilja Sigurdardottir and Quentin Bates (translator)0811771741|title=Red as BloodInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersCrafts|summary=When Flosi’s wife goes missing, all the evidence seems Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to point towards her having been kidnappedblankets. The ransom note tells him not to have any contact with Some will be quick knits - others are of the police'long, so instead he enlists cosy afternoons in front of the help of Arora, a financial investigatorfire' variety. She manages to persuade Flosi that they will need the help of The projects are divided by the police, and she calls her detective friend, Daniel, whom she met when he was investigating her sister’s disappearance. Together, time they start 'll take to secretly investigate Gudrun’s disappearancecomplete - less than five hours, trying not five to arouse the suspicion of anyoneten hours, since they have no idea who ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the kidnappers might beprojects are attractive, yet the more they uncover, the more confusing things becomemodern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.|isbn=1914585321
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0861541995Dean Koontz|title=Wolf Pack|author=Will DeanThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeParanormal|summary=The story began when Tuva Moodyson drove her Hilux pickup truck on the road north of VisbergBenny is having a terrifically bad day. She sees blood on the road He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and a creature on its side near the pine treeshis house gets trashed. It will turn out to be BroncoOh, and someone has delivered a Swedish Elkhoundreally weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, who and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has been attacked by trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a wolfnice person. Tuva takes Bronco and his owner, Bengt Nyberg, to the vetA really nice person. Bronco didn't make So fortunately for Benny it but on turns out that the way, Nyberg told Tuva that he was out looking for delivery to his niecehouse is a new friend, twenty-year-old Elsa Nyberga bad weather friend called Spike, who had gone missing. She'd has been working at Rose Farm and Moodyson's journalist's instincts are soon brought sent to the forehelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Rose Farm Spike is now home going to a group take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of survivalists but back in 1987 the then ownerBenny's enemies, if he, Johan Svenson murdered his wifeBenny, and his two eldest children and then killed himselfHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. His newborn child, just four weeks old survived. Does this have any connection to the disappearance of Elsa Nyberg?|isbn=1662500491
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{{Frontpage
|author=Alison HughesAdam Stower|title=FlyMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers|summary=This Murray is supposed to be a very impressive readhumble, as it does a lot of what mainstream teen tidy and tween fiction still struggles with. Its focus friendly cat, one who is courtesy able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the first-person narration from Flytwo. But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a secondary school lad with cerebral palsyhyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, a down-on-her-luck single mom nearing retirement from being a cleanerand the catflap they both use can chuck them out, a carer while at schoolnot into the regular back garden, and but into a bundle world of assumptions people lay on himfrightening adventure and whiffs. First they assume that with This time round it drops them into a broken body comes Viking land, where a broken mindtroll hunter is expected – well, then they decide one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's a maths savant – they even believe they can get away with calling him Fly, which isnturned up and he't his real name, but everybody just uses it.ll have to do…|isbn=15253058320008561249
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=3791388398B0C47LV1PC|title=New European Baking: 99 Recipes for Breads, Brioches and PastriesFragility|author=Laurel KratochvilaMosby Woods|rating=4.5|genre=CookeryLiterary Fiction|summary=This is probably one of the most unusual baking books ICan you make a ''Yo birthing person've encountered. It's built around 99 recipes for breadsjoke? And if you could, brioches and pastries but is the recipes are interwoven with some thought-provoking writing on how bread - and baking - have changed in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. We start with question should you make it? Or is the basics - the equipment question if you'll need (there's nothing extravagant or indulgent) and the ingredientsdid, where the author would it land? The catch is particular. You might not have realised that different salts can change the flavour and sensation on answer for both could well be.... no. ''Fragility'' is set as the tongue city of the finished product butPortland, apparentlyOregon, they do.cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Andrew Givler1529431735|title=Soul Fraud (The Debt Collection Book 1)Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=FantasyCrime|summary=It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins'Matt has a terrible lifereturn all the more surprising. Seriously—it He's awful. It is so bad that Dan d been exiled on the Demon is shocked when Matt turns down his infernal offer: 10 years of Costa del Sol as a blissful life in exchange wanted drug smuggler for his soula decade. The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she' Poor Dan! I know, I know, we shouldns ill and hasn't long to live. It's hard to feel sorry for soul-catching demons. But he really any sympathy when Hopkins is a terrible salesman. He never hits abducted, stripped to his targets underwear and, when he fails sent to get even Matt to sign on a watery grave in the dotted line, he's so desperate that he simply forges Matt's signatureboot of a stolen Ford Sierra.|isbn=1958204021 Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{Frontpage
|author=Greg James Alex Bell and Chris SmithTim McDonagh|title=Super GhostThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Paragon City has been lucky to have Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the great Doctor Extraordinarywondrous library we start by visiting with him, their very own superhero taking care of themand in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the family. Whenever A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the evil Captain Chaos has come up with another cunning plan (usually involving titular race, a giant robot of some description) Doctor Extraordinary has been there globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to thwart her mischief and save navigate the world in the daycompany of a magical beast. But one day This has made the race anathema to the Doctor and pair – but when a bad incident at the Captain are trapped together inside eatery leads to a giant robot that then explodesconfession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, and with the sole aim the prize of magic at the hero and end – the villain are no moreonly thing to possibly save his gran. Or are they…?|isbn=02414705360571382231
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0B7289HKQ178763681X|title=Conversations Across America: A Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of AmericaKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Kari LoyaOrlando Murrin
|rating=4
|genre=TravelCrime|summary=Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, by the 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 way) wanted to spend some time with his father of getting both men and the period between two jobs seemed like a good time women to do itwhat he wanted. The decision was made Paul ''somehow'' got the impression that he'd be at the school to ride the Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktownassist Paul, Virginia to Astoriawho had a broken arm, Oregon but it didn't turn out that way. The teaching - and the problems - are all 4250 miles of it - in 2015his own. They had 73 days The one thing he hadn't expected was for someone to do it - slightly less than the recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this turn up as more of a challenge that it would be for most people who considered taking it ondead. Merv Loya Unfortunately, he was 75 years old the person who discovered the body and he was suffering from early-stage Alzheimer'severyone knows that the police consider that person to be the prime suspect.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher BowdenSarah Marsh|title=Mr MagentaA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Christopher Bowden's latest novel is After a patient untangling bout of scarlet fever as a seemingly ordinary woman's lifechild, carried out by Ellen Lark loses her nephew after she has diedhearing. The aunt who always provided Suddenly plunged into a safe harbour and world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a little bit time when the use of indulgence sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a young nephew had had school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised system called Visible Speech. At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and it seems to him an obligation to find it all outEllen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage. |isbn= B0B6Z9VJDW1035401614
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17395939011803816759|title=22 Ideas About The FutureUnravelling|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)Will Gibson|rating=54
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=It''Our future will be more complex than we expected. Instead of flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones s 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the wealthy and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandmapeaceful New York City.'' I've got Joe longs for a couple bit of confessions adventure and to makeget stuck into some really gritty crime detection. I'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a few stories But then something goes horribly wrong with the AI system that now runs everything, making life easier for many, and then forget to return riots start to the bookspread. There's got to be a very compelling hook Finally, Joe gets to keep me engageddo some real policing. Then there's science fiction: far too often it's In the technology which takes centre stage along with aftermath of the world-buildingrioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and Joe is assigned to bring her home. ItJoe isn's human beings who fascinate me: t the technology only one trying to save Suki - Dylan, a British superfan and tech nerd, is also on the world scape are purely incidentalcase. So, what did I think of a book of twenty-two science fiction short storiesWhat went wrong? Well, I loved Did the system fail or was it. hacked? And how is Suki's kidnapping connected?
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=14059511841529421284|title=The Girls Who DisappearedLaying Out the Bones|author=Claire DouglasKate Webb|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Back It was one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in November 1998, Olivia Rutherford was driving her three friends home after a night outheatwave. As she passed through the darkly-wooded Devil's CorridorIn a gully, a figure appeared in human skeleton came to the road. Olivia swerved to avoid him surface and forensic testing proved the car smashed into a treebody to be Lee Geary, leaving her trapped. When she regained consciousness her three friends who had disappearednine years earlier. Ralph MiddletonHe'd been a known drug user and had learning disabilities, who lived in the woods helped her before the police and ambulance arrivedso it could have been a simple case of misadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn't convinced. But Geary was a townie, so what had happened to Sally Thorne, Tamsin Cole and Hetty Ridingwas he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? Their disappearance would be yet another mysterious happening in There are connections to the Stafferbury area suicide of WiltshireHolly Gilbert and to two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the time. It was thought Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad of as Aveburythe Major Crimes Review Unit (that's poor relationcold cases to you and me) investigate.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=39496660790571379559|title=Noema|author=Dael Akkerman|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=''This is a story about some things that happened to me about twelve thousand years ago.'' Maya is a young girl living in a hunter-gatherer village during the Mesolithic era. Climate change is occurring, the Sea of Grass encroaches further and further into Maya's forest home, and food is becoming more and more scarce. What to do? Can the law givers in the federation The House of villages muster peaceful ways to cope? Can the Traveller, a spiritual figure who interprets the wisdom of All Life, provide solutions? }}{{Frontpage|isbn=194241028X|title=Azabu Getaway (Detective Hiroshi)Broken Bricks|author=Michael PronkoFiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=''You canThe House of Broken Bricks't put 'good at golfis the story of four people. Tess Hembry' s roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on your tombstonethe riverbank, can you?'' When we meet Patrick Walsh he's outside his familybuilt of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's home in stood the Azabu district passage of Tokyotime, hoping that his key will still work but prepared to break in if it doesn'tstorms and floods. He's there Her husband, Richard, struggles to remove grow his daughters, Jenna and Kirivegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and take them back to Honolulubring in sufficient money. It's a quick day tripThey have twin boys - Sonny and Max, with just one purpose in mindthe rainbow twins. PatrickSonny's employed by Nine Dragons Wealth Management and for the past year, hecolouring reflects his mother's been working in Wyoming because the privacy laws there are conducive to the business he's inJamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. His wife, Miyuki, hasnPeople don't been in Wyoming with him believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is in the process of divorcing him after photographs sent to her anonymously suggested out with his mother that Patrick had not been faithful to her. Patrickshe's plan didn't work out and he finds himself on the run in Tokyo with the two girlshis nanny.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09SGWCXQ81529425867|title=The Night Watch Lost and Never Found (A D S Max CraigieI Wilkins Mystery)|author=Neil LancasterSimon Mason
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Fergus Grigor went out for a runIn Oxford, there are two D I Wilkins. The lawyer was on his honeymoon but his body was found dashed to pieces below the cliffs at Dunnett Head Raymond Wilkins is of Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and always exquisitely dressed. Was it suicide D I Ryan Wilkins, or did he - for some reason - climb over the stone wall son of Ryan and fall to his death? Or was he pushed? On balancefather of Ryan, it looked like an accident but then his is not. He'accident' was linked to the deaths s not any of others associated with himthose things. Scott Paterson was released after He's white, originated from a trailer park, barely educated (reading's not-proven' verdict meant that Scotland's most notorious criminal wasnreally'' his thing) and his wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackies. They're usually in lime green or acid yellow. You might wonder if you're being introduced to a police procedural written for laughs. Well, you't facing life imprisonmentre not. The two men are just different sides of the same policing coin. Paterson was Grigor Sometimes the combination works brilliantly well. Sometimes it's last clientproblematic.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0989715337Mosby Woods|title=Papa on the Moon|author=Marco NorthA Whirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The West isn''Some frogs had gotten into t the welldominant force it once was.'' ''Walter stood waist-deep Nobody in the fragrant waterWest is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, naked except a push for his beaten leather hatclimate action there. Long strands of their eggs wove around himA feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, sticky gray pearls there was a man with tadpoles inside themprecognition. Two of Imagine the dogs leaned over the opening and barked down at the strange noise of the buckets as he filled them.'' How is that for an opening? The style of strategic advantage in this novel in the form asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and musing, turning on a sixpencecircumstances. And author Marco NorthThat man would be valuable, who has right? Perhaps the most wonderful turn of phrasevaluable asset in history. Imagine then, starts as he means that this man loses this ability. What would governments do to go on.}}{{Frontpageget it back?|isbn=140639131X|title=A Practical Present for Philippa Pheasant|author=Briony May Smith|rating=4.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=Philippa Pheasant was ''tired'' of nearly getting squished as she tried to cross the Old Oak Road. She wrote to the mayor about the problem but didn't even get a reply. Philippa wasn't a bird to sit back on her tail feathers when there was a problem which needed solving: she saw the benefits of the lollipop lady at the school crossing and decided that she would set up something similar herself. Her uniform and lollipop stick were both a little amateur to start with but the benefits were obvious. All the animals used the crossing and Hedgehog was even trained up to provide a safe path overnight.B0C9SNG8R1
}}
