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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|isbn=19145854020241636604|title=Dashboard Elvis is DeadThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=David F RossGary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionAutobiography|summary=I reviewed David F RossIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you's book [[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. Therewas no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035021803|title=The Antique Hunter's Only One Danny Garvey by David F RossGuide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|Theresummary=It's Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and affecting it the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur wasthe reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. It was Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in a gripping, emotionally wounding readcafe, met and rereading my review married James (on the rebound from the love of it my main takeaway her life, who was that I might not murdered) and Freya and James have lavished enough praise on itnow divorced.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=178563335XAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Sea DefencesAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Hilary TaylorBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Science Fiction|summary=When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they'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 held when you need to pick the children upeighteen. Her husbandWell, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds I must confess that there have been more than a sobbing parishionerfew decades of technology in my lifetime. ThelmaI've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's daughterall getting away from me. Some of it is -infrankly -law won't let her see her grandsonquite frightening. HolthorpeOf course, on I could research the Norfolk coast, is a lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with possibilities and the parish - probabilities and sheend up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I's in awe of the vicar, Gail, but then shem reading someone who knows what they's been doing re talking about or the job for more than thirty yearslatest conspiracy theorist. Rachel I needed people I knew I could trust and Christopher hoped that who could deliver information in a walk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missingway I could understand.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Hadeer ElsbaiSunny Singh|title=The Daughters of IzdiharHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=FantasyThrillers |summary= Drawing inspiration The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from Egypt, ''The Daughters of Izdihar'' explores the lives of two women terrorists who could not be more differentare rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, yet find themselves fighting for the rights of women a wartime photographer and weavers – those with magical abilities - in a society pitted against them. NehalAbhi, born into the upper class, wishes hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to attend care remotely for the Weaving Academy to learn to control her abilities and then join residents who are still alive in the militaryhotel, but instead she is forced into an arranged marriage he forms a bond with Nico. Giorgina on the other hand did not have a privileged upbringing like Nehal and feels great pressure Sam who refuses to provide for her family be cowed by events, and maintain their reputation, whilst secretly attending meetings keeps on venturing out of the Daughters of Izdihar – a group campaigning for womenher room to try to capture what's rightshappened through her photography. Giorgina also happens to be in love with Nico. What follows is a story of an unjust society, filled with hypocrisy and cruelty Although they only ever talk over the phone, from which blossoms a group of admirable women fighting for their rights friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and overcoming their personal obstaclesthey both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=0356520471086154742X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sarah Todd Taylor1529153298|title=Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Spoonful The List of SpyingSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=[[Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A Recipe for Trouble by Sarah Todd Taylor|Last time around]]woman? I mean, Alice Eclair had to prove herself as a spy and as a master at all things French and fancy and fondanthonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, as the only way to save the day involved being an expert baker and icer on the French railwaysthough. Women have been disappearing. HereWell, we start on a bateau-mouche in Paristhey've been murdered, and even though the espionage isnbut to have 'disappeared' doesn't a complete success it proves to Alice and her handlers that things are afootsound quite so frightening. And there will never be more feet than at the WorldMiv's upset because she's Fair, reviving the huge expo overheard that gave the city the Eiffel Tower and this time showing all her interwar glories off father wants to move the worldfamily 'Down South'. Once again Alice will have to present the front to the world of being When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a humble yet world-class cake decoratorfrightening, foreign place, while seeking out cluesbest avoided. At stake? For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. Pioneering flight technology She's not worried about the dangers or that the enemy just cannot be allowed her Mum's stopped talking - to smuggle out…|isbn=1839940972anyone.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Amanthi Harris1398524085|title=Beautiful PlaceHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary= PadmaCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, a young Sri Lankansons Niall, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of Paul and Ollie and her home countrydaughter, Etty. This are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is a place she spent her formative yearsnot. It is not a place she was born intoShortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, but find the one she thinks body of as home. How she came to be at the VillaGreg's father, how it became her homeDuncan Ackerley, and in the river. It was an easy assumption for the machinations police to make that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the ''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novelguilt. Padma The Salter children are not convinced but there's present fails to escape her past little else they can do but get on with their lives and much like the musical score of a film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villawonder about what really happened.|isbn=1784631930
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Nigel Baines1035906708|title=A Tricky Kind of MagicDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Emerging ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Cooper loves We tend to perform magic tricks. His father think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was a magicianborn to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and named Cooper after the great Tommy Cooperonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. But sadly CooperHer original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 's father died suddenly, and now Cooper doesnCallas't quite know who to be, or how to bemake it more manageable in the States. And when his dad's prop rabbit starts talking to himWhen she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, he ''really'' doesn't know what's going on anymore!|isbn=1444960261Jackie.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1542037239Christopher Edge|title=Death in Heels|author=Kitty MurphyBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Set against Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the backdrop nickname of Dublin's drag sceneThe Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they''Death in Heels'' tells the story re looking forward to lots of Fi McKinnery exciting films, and her best friendmany, many snacks! However, Robynas the movie starts, who is they very quickly realise that something about to debut as drag queen Mae B. What this new film format is meant to be a night of excitement soon takes a downward turn when fellow drag queenvery different, Eve, takes to the stage and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to mock Mae B. As if the night could not get any worsenext, when Fi heads home she discovers Eve dead in a gutter. Fi can they figure out what on earth is adamant that Eve was murdered, yet going on? Will they ever get back to the drag communitycinema, and the Guards, accept it as an accident. Fi takes it upon herself to solve the mystery as she fears for her friends, but instead ruins relationships as she delves deeper.their real lives?|isbn=1839942738
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1800465270Rachel Greenlaw|title=The Lensky Connection|author=Conrad DelacroixCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersTeens|summary=When we first meet Major Valeri Grozky, it's June 1995 and he's at I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the Serafimov Cemetry answering beat in St Petersburgmy heart. He's ' Rosevear, a pallbearer for his elder brotherremote and partially forgotten island, Timur, whose death was drug-relatedsurvives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Valeri and Timur's fatherMira, Ketolike her mother before her, is also a pallbearer one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and he's disgusted by what his son had becomeany treasure that lies within. Valeri thinks differently: heBut when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's determined to make his own stand against organised crime leader and avenge TimurMira's father. Desperate to save him from death. Within a matter of months, his obsession will have cost him his marriage to Marisha and created Mira makes a dubious link bargain with Natassja Petrovskaya, a journalist. She's determined to expose any wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and all corruption - and she's less concerned than she ought with only coordinates to be about her own safety. To guide her, he's she sets off in search of a good sourcefamily secret that lies buried deep in the sea. For himWith only nine days to unearth what might save her father, itas her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's a way to get information publishedterritory, which wouldn't otherwise Mira must be possibledetermined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1399702289James Sherwood Metts|title=A World of Curiosities (Chief Inspector Gamache)|author=Louise PennyPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=After Things have been a harsh winter, bit sticky for the tiny Canadian village of Three Pines is enjoying the arrival of springEarthlings. But something is worrying Chief Inspector Armand Gamache AI and Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir of the Sûreté du Québec. Gamache had offered help to a young woman after the murder of her mother: he'd automation have been less certain about her charismatic brother. For Jean-Guyproceeding apace, it had always been the other way around. Now often replacing jobs they're both in the village paid to do and neither can fathom what's happeningother tasks that took time to accomplish. Armand will soon find that Just as they're not just in Three Pines but in his home were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and in his life, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0BHR8KWSKMatthew Tree|title=Dukkha|author=Martin HydeWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=HorrorLiterary Fiction|summary=Sam wakes up chained in Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a basement. He rails against his captor drunk and the injustice chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his imprisonment? Why? ''Why?'' But artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of course, he knows why. Sam is an erstwhile drug dealer who escaped this down and dirty life by going to a retreat and emerging as a neophyte Buddhist monkself confidence. Recently returning So Tim applied himself to join the community in his old neighbourhoodstudies, he knew cultivated his abilities rather than his past would be hard to escape daydreams and set himself high but he hadn't imagined it exploding into this new life in quite such a violent fashionachievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09XWSXSKYA G Slatter|title=Maestro Orpheus and The Briar Book of the World Clock|author=Robert Penee and Joanne GrodzinskiDead|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersFantasy|summary=Frederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn't sleep. A tune, rather like the ticking ' There's a part of a clock was playing over and over in his mind. It happened every time he came me that wants to keep this just to visit his grandfathermyself for however long I can. He hadn't really wanted to come; after This secret magic of my own, allmine, he's ten now and all those old clocks don't appeal at last. I just want to him anymore. ''Who needs old clocks anyway? All they do is tell the time. And time isn't good enjoy it for anything..a while.''
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=37562287111529900360|title=CDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'Ghost Orchid|author=Hans BodmerJonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryCrime|summary=It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis'The history of s fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the development help of IT could fill books of several hundred pagesa psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware'' Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about s partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that. He has chosen to tell us about the short, but explosive, history of involvement was something that the Control Data Company, CDCman she loved needed. The next case did look simple, for whom he workedthough. It's Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a fascinating tale, told remote property in a mixture of technological summary Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and wry anecdoteit's not the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15293566601529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The SanctuarySecret Life of a Vet|author=Emma HaughtonSion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=ThrillersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=It Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the quiet which woke Zoey up strain that being on- or, rather, call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the absence opportunity of the noise which doing work experience with a family friend who was a constant in New York. Here it vet and was convinced this was silent and the heat was overwhelmingjob for him. When she looked out of the window all she could see Before long, he was the desertat Liverpool University. How did she get here? Zoey was houseIt hadn't - as with so many students -sitting for Uncle Dan and been his two Manx cats and she remembered that she'd been out with Franny and Rocco last nightdream since he was a child. She knew that she If anything, he'd had quite a lot wanted to drink but how could she have got to the desert from New York? She had no memory of getting on a plane but as she thought back, a memory of sirens, flashing lights and of being pushed into be a car snagged on the edge of her mindprofessional footballer.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Christopher Golden0861541774|title=Road of Bones|rating=3.5|genre=Horror|summary=The Kolyma Highway… the 'Road of Bones'… the R504. Stretching for over a thousand miles across Siberia, it's one of the world's most notorious routes. For months of the year it's a spread of sheet ice suspended above the permafrost surrounding it, while its 'spring' sees it turn into a huge blodge of unremitting, apocalyptic-level mud, which dries into rutted, puddly dust. 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 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, for one A Nye of our main characters, Felix 'Teig' Teigland, is a film-maker, doing a recce with his cameraman buddy, John Prentiss – who's mostly there to encourage the project to fruition to claw back some of the funds he'd invested in the pair's prior TV projects. They pick up their oh-so-chatty local guide, gain the company of a local beauty, and fetch up at the guide's childhood village. And that's where things start to go awry…|isbn=1803361476}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1838776184|title=Her Majesty the Queen Investigates: Murder Most RoyalPheasants|author=S J BennettSteve Burrows|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=DCI Domenic Jejeune''The Queens close friend and former colleague, like the sunrise and the tidesDanny Maik, was generally has taken a reliable way of marking time.'' It seemed short holiday in Singapore to begin as a coldmeet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Hardly surprising, really, as Prince Philip had been suffering for Maik was involved in a couple of days but seemed to be getting better. Hopefully, the Queen thought, her cold street brawl - he would go the same way. She'd probably caught it from one of the greatlater maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife -grandchildrenand he killed a Ghurka. UnfortunatelyInitially, it didn't get better and when the doctor called he diagnosed full-blown flu. She and the Duke were due faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to go light that suggested that he might have planned to Sandringham by train that day but murder the doctor put his foot downman. He'd have preferred that the queen have a few days' bed rest before venturing out but had to Now he could be satisfied with facing the thought that they'd go by helicopter the following daydeath penalty. It was annoying: people would be ready for her today Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and Her Majesty did not like to disappointwouldn't help Danny at all.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Peter Owen JonesAlexander McCall Smith|title=Conversations with NatureThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=Spirituality and ReligionGeneral Fiction|summary= One of The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the comments made when I was offered this beautiful book business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for review was that it's not very longa while. Having read Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the book twice overchance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, I'm brought back inescapably thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Spanish proverb that Life may be shortIsabel Dalhousie novels, but it is broadwith some new characters who quickly begin to charm. In this case I Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there'm brought s always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to the idea that the length of life is not the point; the point is its depth. Peter Owen Jones dives deep.lend a hand…|isbn=19129924181846976596
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=19164599430811771741|title=Squeakily InstaKnits for Baby|author=Beth WebbMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrafts|summary=Much as mothers love their babies, thereMelissa Leapman's something they all dread - a squeakily baby. He's so tired but he can't - or wonInstaKnits for Baby't - go to sleep: instead, he just lies on his blanket and ''wails''. The sea offers gives us a collection of knits from toys to helpblankets. It rocks Baby gently and Some will be quick knits - others are of the waves sing ''hushlong, hush''. Think cosy afternoons in front of gentle wavelets falling onto a sandy beach and you have the sound perfectlyfire' variety. The mermaids join in projects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - ''la louless than five hours, five to ten hours, la lay..ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours.'' And for a moment it seems to have worked as Baby closes his eyesAll the projects are attractive, modern and useable. Then a seagull I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects''shouts''' and we know exactly whatbut that's going to happen nextme being picky.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Robin StevensDean Koontz|title=The Ministry of Unladylike ActivityBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersParanormal|summary=May Wong Benny is having a long way from her family in Hong Kongterrifically bad day. She’s stuck in her schoolHe loses his job, Deepdeanhe loses his fiancee, and desperate to get awayhis house gets trashed. Oh, and do something useful someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to help end the war his home, and to get home. She just knows it's possible that she would make whoever or whatever was inside is the perfect spything that has trashed his house! And when she finds herself turned away by the MinistryThe thing is, she takes matters into her own hands, along with a boy she meets outside Benny is the Ministry, Ericvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. They both go undercover in He is a large country nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his houseis a new friend, pretending to be evacueesa bad weather friend called Spike, in an attempt who has been sent to prove that someone there help him since Benny is passing secrets to the Nazisclearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. But there Spike is a lot more going on in Elysium Hall than either them have imaginedto take care of Benny, and suddenly they find themselves in the middle will certainly take care of a murder sceneBenny's enemies, if he, Benny, with even more to try to unravel and solveHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=02414298621662500491
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{{Frontpage
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers |summary=First of allMurray is supposed to be a humble, it was the earthquaketidy and friendly cat, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and this, in turnwell, caused whatever takes his fancy next of the nuclear meltdowntwo. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountableBut he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the list of priorities regular back garden, but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered into a dog outside a convenience storeworld of frightening adventure and whiffs. He wasn't This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a dog person troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but the convenience store ownerhe's comment that turned up and he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa 'll have to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.do…|isbn=0008561249
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529153050B0C47LV1PC|title=Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022Fragility|author=Tim BensonMosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=HumourLiterary Fiction|summary=Seeking some light relief from Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the current political turmoil which question should you make it? Or is coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sportthe question if you did, I was nudged towards would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no. ''BritainFragility's Best Political Cartoons of 2022''. Sharp eyes will have noted that we're not yet through is set as the year: city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022. Who can imagine what there will be to come in restrictions imposed during the 2023 edition?covid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lisa Gray1529431735|title=The Dark RoomWinter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=What if you knew someone was deadIt's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, because youwhich made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd watched them die several years ago, but then you come across been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a photograph that seemed to show their murder happened in wanted drug smuggler for a different place and time? This is what happens to Leonard in this storydecade. He is an The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-crime reporter for a newspaperwife, and since leaving journalism hesaying that she's found himself an unusual hobby where he finds old, undeveloped rolls of film ill and develops them in his own dark room at homehasn't long to live. One of these photographs turns out It's hard to show the murder scene of a young woman he met some years agofeel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and who he ''thought'' he had watched die sent to a watery grave in front the boot of him one night in a hotelstolen Ford Sierra. He'd felt guilty ever since that night, and lost everything because of Is it - his fiancee and his career - but now finds himself wondering if she hadn't really died the night she was with him, what on earth actually happeneda warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?|isbn=154203535X
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{{Frontpage
|author=Natasha Hastings Alex Bell and Alex T SmithTim McDonagh|title=The Miraculous Sweetmakers: The Frost FairGlorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=3.54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''The River Thames had frozen to death Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in its sleep.'' And thus the Frost Fair could happen – people trading on evening a helper at the completely iced-over river, like our heroine Thomasina's father with dessert cafe his gingerbread gran owns and confectionery shopruns. Thomasina will be working the Fair Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – but her twin brother won't, as he dies for there is a generation missing in Chapter Onethe family. It was a tragedy she feels no small guilt forA few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the titular race, and which has made her father a sullen, closed shop – and her bedglobe-bound mother has spoken not a word – not even opened her eyes, more or less – trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the four years since, eithercompany of a magical beast. But into This has made the race anathema to the dark, frosted London comes Inigo, with supreme magical powers, and pair – but when a willingness bad incident at the eatery leads to help Thomasina. Not a confession from gran, Eli knows his only can hope is to dare to enter what he introduce her to most hates, with the fantastical Other Frost Fair, using sole aim the river surface prize of magic at night for no the end of mystical beasts and characters and their happenings, but he has a unique proposal for Thomasina, which will shake her world – the only thing to its corepossibly save his gran.|isbn=00084960560571382231
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams 178763681X|title=The Book of Hope Knife Skills for Beginners|author=Orlando Murrin|rating=54|genre=Politics and Society Crime|summary= The done thing is Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. He didn't really want to read but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a book all the way through before you sit down of getting both men and women to review itdo what he wanted. I’m making an exception here Paul ''somehow'' got the impression that he'd be at the school to assist Paul, because I don’t want to lose any of the experience of reading this amazing bookwho had a broken arm, I want to capture but it as it hits medidn't turn out that way. The teaching - and the problems - are all his own. And it is hitting me The one thing he hadn't expected was for someone to turn up dead. This beautiful book has me in tears Unfortunately, he was the person who discovered the body and everyone knows that the police consider that person to be the prime suspect. |isbn=024147857X
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529504767Sarah Marsh|title=The Christmas Doll (The Repair Shop Stories)|author=Amy Sparkes and Katie HickeyA Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=Susan was very young when she was evacuated from London in 1939 and nervous After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about how she would be greeted when she got to her final destinationlife changes. She needn't have worried though as she went to Living in a time when the home use of Mr and Mrs Russellsign language was seen as something only savages do, who couldn't have been kinder Ellen is sent to her. She even had her own room - all a school where she is taught to herselflip read, but physically restrained from signing. Gradually From here, she relaxed ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and began to enjoy her lifeusing a system called Visible Speech. She'd help Mrs Russell with At the baking same time, Bell is working on other inventions and when it came to Christmas Eve Susan ideas, and Mr Russell put the decorations on the Christmas tree. The best surprise happened the following morningEllen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|isbn=1035401614
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lilja Sigurdardottir and Quentin Bates (translator)1803816759|title=Red as BloodThe Unravelling|author=Will Gibson
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersScience Fiction|summary=When Flosi’s wife goes missing, all It's 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the evidence seems wealthy and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a bit of adventure and to point towards her having been kidnappedget stuck into some really gritty crime detection. The ransom note tells him not to have any contact But then something goes horribly wrong with the policeAI system that now runs everything, so instead he enlists the help of Aroramaking life easier for many, a financial investigatorand riots start to spread. She manages Finally, Joe gets to persuade Flosi that they will need do some real policing. In the help aftermath of the police, rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and she calls her detective friend, Daniel, whom she met when he was investigating Joe is assigned to bring her sister’s disappearancehome. Together, they start to secretly investigate Gudrun’s disappearance, Joe isn't the only one trying not to arouse the suspicion of anyonesave Suki - Dylan, since they have no idea who the kidnappers might bea British superfan and tech nerd, yet is also on the more they uncover, case. What went wrong? Did the more confusing things become.|isbn=1914585321system fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki's kidnapping connected?
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=08615419951529421284|title=Wolf PackLaying Out the Bones|author=Will DeanKate Webb
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=The story began when Tuva Moodyson drove her Hilux pickup truck on the road north It was one of Visberg. She sees blood on those flash downpours that the road and British weather often delivers in a creature on its side near the pine treesheatwave. It will turn out to be Bronco, In a Swedish Elkhoundgully, who has been attacked by a wolf. Tuva takes Bronco and his owner, Bengt Nyberg, human skeleton came to the vet. Bronco didn't make it but on surface and forensic testing proved the way, Nyberg told Tuva that he was out looking for his niece, twenty-year-old Elsa Nybergbody to be Lee Geary, who had gone missingdisappeared nine years earlier. SheHe'd been working at Rose Farm a known drug user and Moodysonhad learning disabilities, so it could have been a simple case of misadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn's journalist's instincts t convinced. Geary was a townie, so what was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? There are soon brought connections to the foresuicide of Holly Gilbert and to two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the time. Rose Farm is now home to a group Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad of survivalists but back in 1987 the then owner, Johan Svenson murdered his wife, Major Crimes Review Unit (that's cold cases to you and his two eldest children and then killed himself. His newborn child, just four weeks old survivedme) investigate. Does this have any connection to the disappearance of Elsa Nyberg?
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0571379559|title=The House of Broken Bricks|author=Alison HughesFiona Williams|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''The House of Broken Bricks'' is 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 the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of time, storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529425867|title=FlyLost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Simon Mason
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=This In Oxford, there are two D I Wilkins. Raymond Wilkins is a very impressive readof Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and always exquisitely dressed. D I Ryan Wilkins, as it does a lot son of what mainstream teen Ryan and tween fiction still struggles withfather of Ryan, is not. Its focus is courtesy He's not any of the first-person narration from Fly, a secondary school lad with cerebral palsythose things. He's white, a down-on-her-luck single mom nearing retirement originated from being a cleaner, a carer while at schooltrailer park, barely educated (reading's not ''really'' his thing) and a bundle his wardrobe consists mainly of assumptions people lay on himshell suits and trackies. They're usually in lime green or acid yellow. First they assume that with a broken body comes a broken mind, then they decide heYou might wonder if you's re being introduced to a maths savant – they even believe they can get away with calling him Flypolice procedural written for laughs. Well, which isnyou't his real name, but everybody re not. The two men are just uses different sides of the same policing coin. Sometimes the combination works brilliantly well. Sometimes it's problematic.|isbn=1525305832
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=3791388398Mosby Woods|title=New European Baking: 99 Recipes for Breads, Brioches and Pastries|author=Laurel KratochvilaA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4.5|genre=CookeryLiterary Fiction|summary=This The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is probably one the best course of the most unusual baking books I've encounteredaction. Governments are flailing. It's built around 99 recipes A war here, a push for breadsclimate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, brioches and pastries but the recipes are interwoven there was a man with some thought-provoking writing on how bread - and baking - have changed in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuriesprecognition. We start with Imagine the basics - the equipment strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you'll need (there's nothing extravagant or indulgent) and the ingredientswhat will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, where right? Perhaps the author is particularmost valuable asset in history. You might not have realised Imagine then, that different salts can change the flavour and sensation on the tongue of the finished product but, apparently, they this man loses this ability. What would governments do.to get it back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1
}}
