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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18484584360241636604|title=Just the Nicest CoupleThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Mary KubicaGary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersAutobiography|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you''The whole thing has spiralled out re unlikely to think of control, turning into someone I'm notlike Gary Stevenson.'' ''Just A hoodie and jeans replaces the Nicest Couple'' pin-stripe suit and his background is the story of two couples: Christian and Lily ScottEast End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and Nina and Jake Hayesinjustice. The connection between the two is that Lily and Nina teach in the same There was no posh public school: Nina teaches English and Lily covers high school algebra. The couples have mixed as a foursome on his CV - but it's not a regular thinghe had been to the London School of Economics. Christian Stevenson is a market research analyst bright - extremely bright - and Jake is he has a neurosurgeon: they don't have much in common except their wivesfacility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. Lily hasn't said anything yetIt was his ability at what was, essentially, but she's pregnanta card game which got him an internship with Citibank. She has Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a lengthy history of miscarriages so she doesn't want to tempt fate by making the knowledge publictrader.
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|isbn=19145854021035021803|title=Dashboard Elvis is DeadThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=David F RossC L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=I reviewed David F RossIt's book [[Theretwenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|Thereback now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of years back 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. 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. It was 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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|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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|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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|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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|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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|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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|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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|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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|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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|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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|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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|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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|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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|authorisbn=Christopher Golden0861541774|title=Road A Nye of BonesPheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=3.54|genre=HorrorCrime|summary=The Kolyma Highway… the DCI Domenic Jejeune'Road of Bones'… the R504. Stretching for over s close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a thousand miles across Siberiashort holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, it's one of the world's most notorious routesGuy Trueman. For months of the year it's Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a spread of sheet ice suspended above the permafrost surrounding it, while its 'spring' sees it turn into man armed with a huge blodge of unremitting, apocalypticknife -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 killed a life every metre it coversGhurka. You can easily find documentaries about it onlineInitially, but that's he faced a bit rich, for one charge of our main characters, Felix 'Teig' Teigland, is a film-maker, doing a recce with his cameraman buddy, John Prentiss – who's mostly there manslaughter but evidence came to encourage the project light that suggested that he might have planned to fruition to claw back some of murder the funds man. Now he'd invested in could be facing the pair's prior TV projectsdeath penalty. They pick up their oh-so-chatty local guide, gain the company of Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a local beauty, diplomatic incident and fetch up wouldn't help Danny at the guide's childhood villageall. And that's where things start to go awry…|isbn=1803361476
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|isbnauthor=1838776184Alexander McCall Smith|title=Her Majesty the Queen Investigates: Murder Most Royal|author=S J BennettThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=''The QueenPerfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, like the sunrise run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the tidesonline apps in providing a more personal, was generally a reliable way of marking time.'' It seemed to begin as a coldtailored service. Hardly surprising, reallyNess has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Prince Philip had been suffering Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a couple of days but seemed to be getting betterwhile. HopefullyKatie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the Queen thought, her cold would go the same waychance to come home to Edinburgh. She'd probably caught it And so begins this new story from one of the great-grandchildren. UnfortunatelyAlexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, it didn't get better thanks to 44 Scotland Street and when the doctor called he diagnosed full-blown flu. She and the Duke were due Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to go to Sandringham by train that day but the doctor put his foot downcharm. He'd have preferred that the queen have Katie has no experience in running a few days' bed rest before venturing out business, or in match-making, but had to be satisfied with the thought that theyNess has full confidence in her abilities, and there'd go by helicopter the following day. It was annoying: people would be ready for s always her today very helpful (and Her Majesty did not like rather handsome) neighbour, William, to disappoint.lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596
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|authorisbn=Peter Owen Jones0811771741|title=Conversations with NatureInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=54|genre=Spirituality and ReligionCrafts|summary= One Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the comments made when I was offered this beautiful book for review was that it's not very long, cosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. Having read The projects are divided by the book twice overtime they'll take to complete - less than five hours, I'm brought back inescapably five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the Spanish proverb that Life may be shortprojects are attractive, but it is broadmodern and useable. In this case Iperhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects'm brought to the idea but that the length of life is not the point; the point is its depth. Peter Owen Jones dives deep's me being picky.|isbn=1912992418
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|isbnauthor=1916459943Dean Koontz|title=Squeakily Baby|author=Beth WebbThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingParanormal|summary=Much as mothers love their babies, there's something they all dread - Benny is having a squeakily babyterrifically bad day. He's so tired but he can't - or won't - go to sleep: insteadloses his job, he just lies on loses his blanket fiancee, and ''wails''his house gets trashed. The sea offers Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to help. It rocks Baby gently his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the waves sing ''hushthing that has trashed his house! The thing is, hush''Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. Think of gentle wavelets falling onto He is a sandy beach and you have the sound perfectlynice person. The mermaids join in - ''la lou, la layA really nice person...'' And So fortunately for a moment Benny it seems turns out that the delivery to have worked as Baby closes his eyeshouse is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Then a seagull '''shouts''Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny' s enemies, if he, Benny, and we know exactly whatHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's going to happen nextwild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491
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|author=Robin StevensAdam Stower|title=The Ministry of Unladylike ActivityMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers|summary=May Wong Murray is supposed to be a long way from her family in Hong Kong. She’s stuck in her schoolhumble, Deepdeantidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and desperate to get awayeat and sleep and, well, and do something useful to help end whatever takes his fancy next of the war and to get hometwo. She just knows that she would make the perfect spy! And when she finds herself But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned away by into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the Ministrycatflap they both use can chuck them out, she takes matters not into her own handsthe regular back garden, along with but into a boy she meets outside the Ministry, Ericworld of frightening adventure and whiffs. They both go undercover in This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a large country housetroll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, pretending to be evacueeshonest, in an attempt to prove that someone there is passing secrets to the Nazis. But there is a lot more going on in Elysium Hall than either them but he's turned up and he'll have imagined, and suddenly they find themselves in the middle of a murder scene, with even more to try to unravel and solve.do…|isbn=02414298620008561249
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|isbn=1919635017B0C47LV1PC|title=A Thief to Catch a KillerFragility|author=Kitt TownsendMosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary= Solomon Klyne isnCan you make a ''Yo birthing person''t a bad ladjoke? And if you could, so why is he running around London committing a series of robberiesthe question should you make it? And how Or is the question if you did he learn to crack safes, would it land? You'll have to wait to get an answer to The catch is that the second question because I avoid spoilers. But I'll answer the first one: for his grandmotherboth could well be.... no. ''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
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|isbn=13985153881529431735|title=The Boy and the DogWinter Visitor|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)James Henry|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floorIt's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which created made Bruce Hopkins' return all the tsunami and this, in turn, caused more surprising. He'd been exiled on the nuclear meltdownCosta del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The result was complete return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and utter devastationhasn't long to live. The deaths were uncountableIt's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the loss boot of livelihoods was widespreada stolen Ford Sierra. The fact that many pets were separated Is it a warning from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't Spanish gang or a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa problem closer to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.home?
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|isbnauthor=1529153050Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim BensonThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=HumourConfident Readers|summary=Seeking some light relief from Eli is 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 current political turmoil which dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sporta generation missing in the family. A few short years ago, I was nudged towards ''BritainEli's Best Political Cartoons parents were both lost to the titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of 2022''a magical beast. Sharp eyes will have noted that we're not yet through This has made the race anathema to the year: pair – but when a bad incident at the cartoons run eatery leads to a confession from 4 September 2021 gran, Eli knows his only hope is to 31 August 2022. Who can imagine dare to enter what there will be he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to come in the 2023 edition?possibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231
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|authorisbn=Lisa Gray178763681X|title=The Dark RoomKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Orlando Murrin
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=What if you knew someone was dead, because you'd watched them die several years ago, but then you come across Chef Paul Delamare took a photograph that seemed to show their murder happened in teaching job at a different place and time? This is what happens to Leonard residential cookery school in this storyBelgravia. He is an ex-crime reporter for didn't really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a newspaper, way of getting both men and since leaving journalism he's found himself an unusual hobby where women to do what he finds old, undeveloped rolls of film and develops them in his own dark room at homewanted. One of these photographs turns out to show the murder scene of a young woman he met some years ago, and who he Paul ''thoughtsomehow'' got the impression that he 'd be at the school to assist Paul, who had watched die in front of him one night in a hotel. Hebroken arm, but it didn'd felt guilty ever since t turn out that night, way. The teaching - and lost everything because of it the problems - are all his fiancee and his career - but now finds himself wondering if she own. The one thing he hadn't really died the night she expected was with himfor someone to turn up dead. Unfortunately, what on earth actually happened?|isbn=154203535Xhe was the person who discovered the body and everyone knows that the police consider that person to be the prime suspect.
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|author=Natasha Hastings and Alex T SmithSarah Marsh|title=The Miraculous Sweetmakers: The Frost FairA Sign of Her Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=''The River Thames had frozen to death in its sleep.'' And thus the Frost Fair could happen – people trading on the completely iced-over riverAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, like our heroine Thomasina's father with his gingerbread and confectionery shop. Thomasina will be working the Fair too – but Ellen Lark loses her twin brother won't, as he dies in Chapter Onehearing. It was Suddenly plunged into a tragedy she feels no small guilt forworld of silence, and which has made everything about her father life changes. Living in a sullentime when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, closed shop – and her bed-bound mother has spoken not Ellen is sent to a word – not even opened her eyesschool where she is taught to lip read, more or less – in the four years since, eitherbut physically restrained from signing. But into From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the dark, frosted London comes Inigo, with supreme magical powers, deaf and using a willingness to help Thomasinasystem called Visible Speech. Not only can he introduce her to At the fantastical Other Frost Fairsame time, using the river surface at night for no end of mystical beasts Bell is working on other inventions and characters ideas, and their happenings, but he has Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a unique proposal for Thomasina, which will shake her world to its corecomplicated tangle of espionage.|isbn=00084960561035401614
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|authorisbn=Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams 1803816759|title=The Book of Hope Unravelling|author=Will Gibson|rating=54|genre=Politics and Society Science Fiction|summary= The done thing It's 2038 and Joe is to read a book all bored cop policing the way through before you sit down wealthy and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a bit of adventure and to review itget stuck into some really gritty crime detection. I’m But then something goes horribly wrong with the AI system that now runs everything, making an exception herelife easier for many, because I don’t want and riots start to spread. Finally, Joe gets to lose any do some real policing. In the aftermath of the experience of reading this amazing bookrioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and Joe is assigned to bring her home. Joe isn't the only one trying to save Suki - Dylan, a British superfan and tech nerd, I want to capture it as is also on the case. What went wrong? Did the system fail or was it hits me. hacked? And it how is hitting me. This beautiful book has me in tears. |isbn=024147857XSuki's kidnapping connected?
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|isbn=15295047671529421284|title=The Christmas Doll (The Repair Shop Stories)Laying Out the Bones|author=Amy Sparkes and Katie HickeyKate Webb|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Susan It was very young when she was evacuated from London one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in 1939 and nervous about how she would be greeted when she got to her final destinationa heatwave. She needn't have worried though as she went In a gully, a human skeleton came to the home of Mr surface and Mrs Russellforensic testing proved the body to be Lee Geary, who couldnhad disappeared nine years earlier. He't d been a known drug user and had learning disabilities, so it could have been kinder to hera simple case of misadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn't convinced. She even had her own room - all to herself. Geary was a townie, so what was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? Gradually she relaxed and began There are connections to enjoy her life. She'd help Mrs Russell with the baking suicide of Holly Gilbert and when it came to Christmas Eve Susan and Mr Russell put the decorations on two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the Christmas treetime. The best surprise happened Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad of the following morningMajor Crimes Review Unit (that's cold cases to you and me) investigate.
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|authorisbn=Lilja Sigurdardottir and Quentin Bates (translator)0571379559|title=Red as BloodThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=45|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=When Flosi’s wife goes missing, all ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the evidence seems to point towards her having been kidnappedstory of four people. The ransom note tells him not to have any contact with the police Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, so but instead he enlists , she lives in the house on the help riverbank, built of Arorabroken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, a financial investigator. She manages to persuade Flosi that they will need it's stood the help passage of the policetime, storms and she calls her detective friendfloods. Her husband, DanielRichard, whom she met when he was investigating her sister’s disappearance. Together, they start struggles to secretly investigate Gudrun’s disappearancegrow his vegetables, trying not to arouse complete the suspicion of anyone, since they delivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. They have no idea who the kidnappers might betwin boys - Sonny and Max, yet the more rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they uncover're related, the more confusing things becomemuch less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny.|isbn=1914585321
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|isbn=08615419951529425867|title=Wolf PackLost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Will DeanSimon Mason
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=The story began when Tuva Moodyson drove her Hilux pickup truck on the road north of VisbergIn Oxford, there are two D I Wilkins. She sees blood on the road Raymond Wilkins is of Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and a creature on its side near the pine treesalways exquisitely dressed. It will turn out to be BroncoD I Ryan Wilkins, a Swedish Elkhoundson of Ryan and father of Ryan, who has been attacked by a wolfis not. Tuva takes Bronco and his owner, Bengt Nyberg, to the vetHe's not any of those things. Bronco didnHe't make it but on the ways white, originated from a trailer park, Nyberg told Tuva that he was out looking for barely educated (reading's not ''really'' his thing) and his niece, twenty-year-old Elsa Nyberg, who had gone missingwardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackies. SheThey'd been working at Rose Farm and Moodysonre usually in lime green or acid yellow. You might wonder if you's journalist's instincts are soon brought re being introduced to the forea police procedural written for laughs. Rose Farm is now home to a group of survivalists but back in 1987 the then ownerWell, Johan Svenson murdered his wife, and his two eldest children and then killed himselfyou're not. His newborn child, The two men are just four weeks old surviveddifferent sides of the same policing coin. Does this have any connection to Sometimes the disappearance of Elsa Nyberg?combination works brilliantly well. Sometimes it's problematic.
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|author=Alison HughesMosby Woods|title=FlyA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary 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 a very impressive readthe best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, as it does a lot of what mainstream teen and tween fiction still struggles withpush for climate action there. Its focus A feeling that nobody is courtesy of the first-person narration from Flyin actual charge. Imagine then, there was a secondary school lad man with cerebral palsy, precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a down-on-her-luck single mom nearing retirement from being a cleaner, a carer while at school, and a bundle man who can tell you what will happen given any set of assumptions people lay on himcircumstances. First they assume that with a broken body comes a broken mindThat man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then they decide he's a maths savant – they even believe they can , that this man loses this ability. What would governments do to get away with calling him Fly, which isn't his real name, but everybody just uses it.back?|isbn=1525305832B0C9SNG8R1
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