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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Amelia Estelle Dellos1035021803|title=Delilah RecoveredThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=FantasyCrime|summary= We meet Dee at a point when her life isnIt't going as planned but things might, just might, be about s twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to look the English country village where she grew up. Out She's back now because of work, about to lose a request for help from her flatbeloved aunt, Dee is up for an accountantCarole. Freya's job. But itformer mentor and Carole's not close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to be. Dee is attacked by two men calling themselves witch hunterssay the least. She survives Arthur was the attack but reason why Freya had not unscathedbeen back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Witch Even though they were in business together as antique hunters? What on earth , she has that not felt able to do with Dee? She's just an ordinary womanbe near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in a cafe, living an ordinary life. Slivers met and married James (on the rebound from the love of memory of things that are not ordinary at all return to her life, who was murdered) and things will never be the same...Freya and James have now divorced.|isbn=B0BKYFDLLV
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008404976AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=The Close (DS Maeve Kerrigan)All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Jane CaseyBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeScience Fiction|summary=It was because ''Opening up new ways of Rula Jacques that DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwent were living together in Jellicoe Closethinking about the shape of things to come.''
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{{Frontpage
|author=Merryn GloverSunny Singh|title=The Hidden FiresHotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=TravelThrillers |summary= It The Hotel Arcadia is always about a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the bookterrorists who are rampaging through, not the writerkilling everyone on site, but there are times when the author's hinterland is also Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, the background hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the book and so it is necessary to understand that context, residents who are still alive in order to appreciate the book. Merryn Glover is of Australian parentagehotel, was born in Kathmanduhe forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, grew up in the Annapurna and Himalayan and now lives in Badenoch in Scotland. I can think keeps on venturing out of no-one better a combination her room to try to give us a re-appraisal of Nan Shepherds work than the first Writer in Residence in the Cairngorms National Parkcapture what's happened through her photography. Merryn walks, not so much in Although they only ever talk over the shadow of Shepherdphone, but in their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her spirit. I think keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the two would have gotten along famouslyterrorists.|isbn=1846975751086154742X
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|authorisbn=Alice M Ross1529153298|title=The Nowhere ThiefList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=At last there It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is new stock in the impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and her mother run in a seaside townPrime Minister. Elsbeth knows this because she has stolen it(A woman? I mean, honestly... ) She also knows she should be free from worries about being found out's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she has 's overheard that her father wants to move the ability to leave this worldfamily 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, and use an unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours to enter other worldsforeign place, where the sea levels are rising dramatically and the buildings are generally empty of humans and ripe for plunderbest avoided. With eviction imminentFor Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, can Elsbeth nab and she'll do anything to actually generate custom at the shop? prevent that. Well yes, is She's not worried about the answer, but the fact a mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…|isbn=1839943769dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.
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|isbn=15295047751398524085|title=The Toy Bus (The Repair Shop Stories)Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Amy Sparkes and Katie HickeyNicci French|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Elsie Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her little brother David loved to go to the park and watch the red buses drive pastdaughter, Etty. Elsie would race the buses along the side of the park are all worried but David couldn't - he'd been born with cerebral palsy and even just standing up was very difficult. One day Elsie spotted a bus in the toy shop window which would help David strangely - and was happy to use the coins from her money box to pay for it as cash was tight at homehusband, Alec, is not. GraduallyShortly afterwards, David learned to stand upEtty and Greg, use find the bus for supportbody of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, and walk behind itin the river. Many decades later, Elsie brought It was an easy assumption for the bus, now damaged and rusted, police to the Repair Shop, hoping make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the experts guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there could make it so that her grandchildren could play 's little else they can do but get on with ittheir lives and wonder about what really happened.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18479418341035906708|title=Atomic HabitsDiva|author=James ClearDaisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=LifestyleGeneral Fiction|summary=I've said this before We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but there are some books that you seek outshe was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, some books that you stumble across in December 1923 and some books that drop into your life because you really MUST read them, like, right now! only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas'Atomic Habits'' to make it more manageable in the States. is When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the last categoryNazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Natasha FarrantChristopher Edge|title=The Rescue of RavenwoodBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This story is another excellent adventure from Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the author nickname of ''Voyage of the Sparrowhawk'The Black Hole'. Ravenwood is an old houseAll big movie fans, in the North they're looking forward to lots of Englandexciting films, where Bea and Raffy have been living for most of their lives. many, many snacks! They are part of a complex, extended family arrangementHowever, as Bea is there with her Uncle Leothe movie starts, and Raffy they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is there with his mumvery different, and they are living together as a family. They have grown swept up swimming in the cove, roaming through the trees, completely at one with all of the nature around the house and loving every inch of the placeinto an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But now the house is under threat, as Leo is under pressure they lurch from his other two brothers one film genre to sell the property to a developer as it's becoming more and more expensive to maintain. next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? The children find themselves worrying not only about where Will they're going ever get back to live, but if they'll even be togetherthe cinema, and if Ravenwood itself will be torn down.to their real lives?|isbn=05713487851839942738
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{{Frontpage
|author=Nick BrooksRachel Greenlaw|title=Promise BoysCompass and Blade|rating=43.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=When ''I can hear the principal (headmaster) song of Urban Promise Prep school 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 murderedone 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 trap to end the wrecking, three boys find themselves called into they capture the police station as suspectsisland's leader and Mira's father. EachDesperate to save him from death, seeminglyMira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, has she sets off in search of a grudge 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 foreign islands to the heart of some description against Principal Moorethe smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and each could the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730}}{{Frontpage|author=James Sherwood Metts|title=Planet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary= Things have been there at a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of his murderother, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. But who killed himLife was pretty much shut down and, and whyalong with it, and if any of all the boys are innocent, will many daily social interactions on which they be able to clear their names?depend so heavily.|isbn=10350031551736128426
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{{Frontpage
|author=G K HollowayMatthew Tree|title=In the Shadows of CastlesWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary= We begin after the momentous battle in 1066 Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and on the day chronic underachiever whose dreams of William being exceptional at any of Normandy's coronation as King his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of England. William's position is not secure and the new king has many challenges. Imposing authority through a coronation is importantself confidence. And William is right So Tim applied himself to worry. While the previous kinghis studies, Harold, is dead cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and the likelihood of more pitched battles is over, the rebels are stirring and much of the country does not wish to recognise a new overlordset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn=1800422466B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008506337A G Slatter|title=The Garnett Girls|author=Georgina MooreBriar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=General FictionFantasy|summary=The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that RichardThere's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle part of Wight. Margo did go me that wants to Oxford and went on keep this just to become a well-respected journalistmyself for however long I can. The couple had three children: RachelThis secret magic of my own, all mine, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Wightlast. Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able I just want to leave him in chargeenjoy it for a while.''.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Vanda Symon1529900360|title=Expectant (Detective Sam Shephard)The Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Detective Sam Shepherd is approaching It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis'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 start help of her maternity leave when there is a brutalpsychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, shocking murder of an expectant woman in Dunedinwho nudged Milo into asking for help again. Suddenly She knew that the involvement was something that the man she finds herself embroiled loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the hunt for swimming pool of a killer targeting pregnant women, with all the extra pressure that entails being pregnant herselfremote property in Bel Air. Finding herself put on desk duties, which she rails against, she just can't let He was the case go heir to an Italian shoe empire and she starts is married to follow every thread to uncover whatan extremely rich man and it's actually happening, and not the increasingly disturbing worry Italian. But which of just what might happen next.|isbn=1914585577them was the primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291259601529395224|title=Unnatural HistoryLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Jonathan KellermanSion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Donny Klement Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a photographer. Well, it was AdonisGP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, actually, but Donny had stuck unless particularly when he got Danny but whichever considered the strain that being on- itcall put on his father's past tense as his PA found life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the job for him dead in his bed. Three shots were placed neatly through his heartBefore long, he was at Liverpool University. The PA, Mel Gornick, is distraught and it falls to psychologist Alex Delaware to calm her down whilst Lieutenant Milo Sturgis gets more agitated It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he tries to establish what's happened. Donny had just finished was a series of photographs called ''The Wishers''child. He'd taken eight homeless people off the streets and asked them what theyIf anything, he'd really like wanted to be. They were then dressed up as their fantasy, photographed and sent on their way with a generous gift in dollarsprofessional footballer.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson0861541774|title=Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns A Nye of Silver StreetPheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=JaydenDCI Domenic Jejeune's nose is forever in a bookclose friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, which means he knows has taken a lot about mythological creatures – the phoenixes and unicorns of the world, for example. Aisha is addicted short holiday in Singapore to her new tabletmeet up with an old ally, where she can see videos of anything that might be out thereGuy Trueman. The problem, as their mothers see it, is Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that they are never 'out there' themselves, exploring the outside world of Hackney, London. But when he was facing a narrowboat turns up carrying man armed with a scienceknife -minded, educational purpose, and with a past involving Jayden's cousin, they find he killed a magical world they never knew existedGhurka. For many of those mythological creatures are realInitially, including the one Aisha thinks she's seen on he faced a bit charge of local footagemanslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. The crew of Now he could be facing the boat, including a living gargoyle, are tasked with saving the rare critters – and the kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed to join indeath penalty. Dare they side with Leila, the woman on board, and her relative who lives Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a figure in a painting, diplomatic incident and become saviours of the unseen?|isbn=0241573483wouldn't help Danny at all.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1913839656Alexander McCall Smith|title=Let's Celebrate Being Different|author=Lainey DeeThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=34.5|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=Todd was excited about spending The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the weekend with his grandmotheronline apps in providing a more personal, not least because tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she made could come and look after the best beetle juicebusiness, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. He packed two pairs Katie is coming out of dungarees a break up with a bad boyfriend, and his favourite hat and then gathered together his button collection so jumps at the chance to come home to show his grandmotherEdinburgh. She had promised And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to take him an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Friday Night Club at the local community centre and Todd was pleased about this as he wanted Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to make new friendscharm. At homeKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, his only friend was his mum and he wondered why that could be. Grandma thought that it might be because he looked different.there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17873010360811771741|title=What July KnewInstaKnits for Baby|author=Emily KochMelissa Leapman|rating=54|genre=ThrillersCrafts|summary=When we first meet July Hooper on 20 July 1995 sheMelissa Leapman's just ten years old''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. SheSome will be quick knits - others are of the 's a carefullong, meticulous childcosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. The care has been taught projects are divided by her father, Mick Hooper, who is not prepared to discuss the death of his wife, Julytime they's motherll take to complete - less than five hours, and any hint that the conversation is heading that way will lead five to the necessity of a Lesson. Other infractions of his requirements also lead ten hours, ten to these Lessons twenty hours and he's not even careful about whether or not the injuries are visiblemore than twenty hours. July's teacher is concerned and brings up the possibility of abuse with All the head but her worries projects are dismissed: Mick has been good to the schoolattractive, has he not? modern and useable. The playground wouldnI perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects't have been resurfaced but for himthat's me being picky.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Lucy AsheDean Koontz|title=Clara and OliviaThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=The year Benny is 1933having a terrifically bad day. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and Olivia are sisters, twins no lesshis house gets trashed. Identical on the outside but not Oh, we learnand someone has delivered a really weird, on the inside. And not on stagedisturbing coffin-sized object to his home, either. Because thereand it's a lot possible that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught whoever or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, whatever was inside is the thing that ''je ne sais quoi''has trashed his house! The thing is, that don't come from Benny is the classroomvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A stage presencereally nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a charmbad 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. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-workers enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a starwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=08615440801662500491
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008454493Adam Stower|title=All the Dangerous Things|author=Stacy WillinghamMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers |summary=Isabelle Drake hasn't really slept for Murray is supposed to be a year - humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, apart from whatever takes his fancy next of the odd occasion when she lost track of time or drifted off for a momenttwo. ItBut he's now a year since her sonbad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, Masonand the catflap they both use can chuck them out, was stolen from his bed in not into the middle regular back garden, but into a world of the night and Izzy is consumed with guilt that she heard nothing frightening adventure and particularly about her relief in the morning when she thought he was sleeping inwhiffs. In that year she's done everything she could to raise awareness about the case. She does interviews and when we meet herThis time round it drops them into a Viking land, she's just been to TrueCrimeCon where she gave a keynote presentation. On the plane backtroll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, shebut he's approached by a podcaster, Waylon Spencer, who points out that she could do a podcast turned up and get he'll have to so many more people than she could by giving speeches to a few hundred people at conferences.do…|isbn=0008561249
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy GreeneB0C47LV1PC|title=Fritz and KurtFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=We start with the pair of brothers Fritz and KurtCan you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, and their muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around is the empty market place, helping question should you make it? Or is the neighboursquestion if you did, being dutiful when would it comes to land? The catch is that the synagogue choir and at a vocational schoolanswer for both could well be... Kurt has to make sure the lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a light switch. But this is the time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's will, and instead of having a national vote to keep the Nazis out, invite them in with open armsno. ''KristallnachtFragility'' happened in Vienna just is set as much as in Germany, as did all the round-ups city of Jews. These in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of an evacuation to Britain or the US, while Fritz and his father arePortland, unknown initially to each otherOregon, packed off on the same train cautiously begins to Buchenwald and emerge from the stone quarry there. And us wondering how restrictions imposed during the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about…|isbn=024156574Xcovid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294212411529431735|title=Stay BuriedThe Winter Visitor|author=Kate WebbJames Henry|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=DI Matt Lockyer It's February 1991 and Essex is on Major Crime Review bitingly cold, which sounds quite grand until you realise that itmade Bruce Hopkins's actually a cold case unit and there are just two of them doing return all the jobmore surprising. LockyerHe's not unduly worried, though although d been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about because he's not quite so sure about DC Gemma Broad: she's probably capable of something better. It was had a bit of a shock when he got the phone call letter from Hedy Lambert: his ex-wife, saying that she's in H M Prison Eastwood Park for murder - ill and it was Lockyer who put her there, fourteen years agohasn't long to live. SheIt's keen hard to see him feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to tell him that a watery grave in the man everyone thought she'd murdered - but the body turned out boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to be someone else - has returned home after being away for decades.?
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0BQXSYYTFAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Just Looking|author=Matthew TreeThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=4.5|genre=Dystopian FictionConfident Readers|summary=It was the summer of 2035 and on Eli is a cruise ship busy lad – by day an apprentice in Marseillesthe wondrous library we start by visiting with him, Jim was celebrating his new-found wealth and the end of his marriage - not two celebrations generally found in the same sentence by evening a man! He's watching helper at the tornado - they're more common in Europe these days - that's keeping the cruise ship in port dessert cafe his gran owns and falls into conversation runs. Eli lives with Jean-Pierrehis lovely gran, too – for there is a French journalist generation missing in his thirtiesthe family. He writes for a relatively new paperA few short years ago, the right-wing ''La Tribune Gauloise'' and heEli's interesting if parents were both lost to the titular race, a little wordy on subjects such as globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the difference between 'France' and 'world in the French'company of a magical beast. His partnerThis has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, HelenEli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, who's English and Jewish, keeps him in check with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to some extentpossibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=057137493X178763681X|title=The Other HalfKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Charlotte VassellOrlando Murrin|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. He didn''The room was full t really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of the sort of people ''Tatler'' thinks you should knowgetting both men and women to do what he wanted. Paul '' somehow''The Other Halfgot the impression that he'' is d be at the story of two menschool to assist Paul, who had a broken arm, both with what looks like the same surnamebut it didn't turn out that way. Rupert Beauchamp is the heir to a baronetcy and his thirtieth birthday party is a cateredThe teaching -with-butler event at McDonalds in Camden Town. Think Bollinger and cocaine. His surname is pronounced 'Beecham'. Caius Beauchamp is a detective inspector with the Metropolitan police and is biproblems -racial. His surname is pronounced as you see itare all his own. The two encounter each other when Caius, out for a run, stumbles across the body of Clemmie O'Hara, Rupertone thing he hadn's girlfriend. Rupert thought that she t expected was being deliberately late for his partysomeone to turn up dead. She Unfortunately, he was dead under a bushthe person who discovered the body and everyone knows that the police consider that person to be the prime suspect.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Joe ThomasSarah Marsh|title=White RiotA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5|genre=Crime|summary= Whenever anyone writes fiction about politics there's always the danger of making it too reactionary; too raw. Knee-jerk observations and hot takes that don't age well or properly capture the spirit of the moment. It takes a truly talented writer to be able to capture the zeitgeist of a particular event or era of political history. Austerity Britain, the student riots, Donald Trump, Brexit – so much of what is, and has been, written in the immediate aftermath of these phenomena has been proven by time to be frothy and insubstantial and ultimately not particularly powerful or incisive. Inevitably (and perhaps disappointingly for people who do enjoy fiction of this nature), the best writing about current political events is that which is written when the events in question are no longer current and when time and experience has afforded the writer the benefit of a more objective view.|isbn= 1529423376}}{{Frontpage|author=Heather Fawcett|title=Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie loreAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulouslyEllen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, to write everything about her life's work, changes. Living in a time when the very first encyclopaedia use of faeries. Whilst sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is brilliant at research and speaking taught to faerieslip read, she is not so good with peoplebut physically restrained from signing. So when From here, she finds herself far, far North ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the village matriarchsame time, she Bell is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back working on the right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome other inventions and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedlyideas, all charm and delight, much to Emily's frustrationEllen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|isbn=03565191201035401614
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18484584361803816759|title=Just the Nicest CoupleThe Unravelling|author=Mary KubicaWill Gibson
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersScience Fiction|summary=It''The whole thing has spiralled out of control, turning into someone I'm not.'' ''Just the Nicest Couple'' s 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the story wealthy and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a bit of two couples: Christian adventure and Lily Scott, and Nina and Jake Hayesto get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. The connection between But then something goes horribly wrong with the two is AI system that Lily now runs everything, making life easier for many, and Nina teach in the same school: Nina teaches English and Lily covers high school algebrariots start to spread. The couples have mixed as a foursome but it's not a regular thingFinally, Joe gets to do some real policing. Christian In the aftermath of the rioting global pop star Suki is a market research analyst kidnapped and Jake Joe is a neurosurgeon: they don't have much in common except their wivesassigned to bring her home. Lily hasnJoe isn't said anything yetthe only one trying to save Suki - Dylan, but she's pregnant. She has a lengthy history of miscarriages so she doesn't want to tempt fate by making British superfan and tech nerd, is also on the knowledge publiccase.What went wrong? Did the system fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki's kidnapping connected?
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=19145854021529421284|title=Dashboard Elvis is DeadLaying Out the Bones|author=David F RossKate Webb
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|ThereIt was one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in a heatwave. In a gully, a human skeleton came to the surface and forensic testing proved the body to be Lee Geary, who had disappeared nine years earlier. He's Only One Danny Garvey]] d been a couple of years back known drug user and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting had learning disabilities, so it wascould have been a simple case of misadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn't convinced. It Geary was a gripping, emotionally wounding readtownie, so what was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? There are connections to the suicide of Holly Gilbert and to two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the time. Lockyer and rereading my review DC Gemma Broad of it my main takeaway was the Major Crimes Review Unit (that I might not have lavished enough praise on it's cold cases to you and me) investigate.
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|isbn=178563335X0571379559|title=Sea DefencesThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Hilary TaylorFiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=When we first meet Rachel Bird she''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's a trainee vicarroots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, sitting she lives in the house on a PCC meeting and wondering why theythe riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it're held when you need to pick s stood the children uppassage of time, storms and floods. Her husband, ChristopherRichard, collects sixstruggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds -yearand to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys -old Hannah Sonny and her elder brotherMax, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishionerthe rainbow twins. ThelmaSonny's daughter-in-law woncolouring reflects his mother't let her see her grandsons Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. HolthorpePeople don't believe that they're related, on the Norfolk coast, is a lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with the parish - much less twins and shethere's in awe of the vicar, Gail, but then an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missinghis nanny.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529425867|title=Lost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Hadeer ElsbaiSimon Mason|titlerating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=In Oxford, there are two D I Wilkins. Raymond Wilkins is of Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and always exquisitely dressed. D I Ryan Wilkins, son of Ryan and father of Ryan, is not. He's not any of those things. He's white, originated from a trailer park, barely educated (reading's not ''really'' his thing) and his wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackies. They're usually in lime green or acid yellow. You might wonder if you're being introduced to a police procedural written for laughs. Well, you're not. The Daughters two men are just different sides of Izdiharthe same policing coin. Sometimes the combination works brilliantly well. Sometimes it's problematic.}}{{Frontpage|author=Mosby Woods|title=A Whirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=FantasyLiterary Fiction|summary= Drawing inspiration from Egypt, ''The Daughters of IzdiharWest isn'' explores t the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the lives best course of two women who could not be more differentaction. Governments are flailing. A war here, yet find themselves fighting a push for the rights of women and weavers – those with magical abilities - climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in a society pitted against themactual charge. Nehal, born into the upper class, wishes to attend the Weaving Academy to learn to control her abilities and Imagine then join the military, but instead she is forced into an arranged marriage there was a man with Nicoprecognition. Giorgina on Imagine the other hand did not have strategic advantage in this asset; a privileged upbringing like Nehal and feels great pressure to provide for her family and maintain their reputation, whilst secretly attending meetings man who can tell you what will happen given any set of the Daughters of Izdihar – a group campaigning for women's rightscircumstances. Giorgina also happens to That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in love with Nicohistory. What follows is a story of an unjust society, filled with hypocrisy and crueltyImagine then, from which blossoms a group of admirable women fighting for their rights and overcoming their personal obstaclesthat this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|isbn=0356520471B0C9SNG8R1
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