Changes

|isbn= B0CCCVRSGX|title=Stories 2|author=Richard F Walker|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary= This is Richard F Walker's second volume of short stories. There are thirteen in all and I took something from each of them. There isn't a single one that doesn't deserve to be among the others or brings down the overall quality. It can be tricky to review short stories without giving too much away, so I'll just pick two to talk about and I think they give a general flavour.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=17876366070241636604|title=The TrapTrading Game: A Confession|author=Catherine Ryan HowardGary Stevenson

|genre=CrimeAutobiography|summary=It's If you were to bring up an image of a scene replicated all too often city banker in the early hours your mind, you're unlikely to think of the morningsomeone like Gary Stevenson. Drunken revellers spilling out of clubs A hoodie and looking for a way to get home. Some are lucky jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and manage to get one of his background is the few taxis availableEast End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. Others squash onto There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the night bus that will only go as far as one London School of the outlying villagesEconomics. The woman all regret the 'taxi problem', particularly in the light of 'the missing women'. For one young woman, the final stop on the bus leaves her Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a long way short facility with numbers which most of her homeus can only envy. She had intended to ring someone He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to come and collect her - but her phone's deadbe stupid. The bus had driven off before she had the chance to beg the bus driver to let her use It was hisability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. There's no option but to start walking - unsuitably clothed and in high-heeled shoesEventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.

|isbn=14059571741035021803|title=A Death at the PartyThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=Amy StuartC L Miller|rating=43.5

|summary=From It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the first page, we know that Nadine WalshEnglish country village where she grew up. She's party will not end wellback now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. The victim - a man - Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dying when we first meet him dead and Nadine consciously makes no effort the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to call the ambulance he so desperately needsvillage: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. What we don't know is who Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man is or why Nadine prefers to have him diepursue the profession she loved. I'd better give you After the split, she worked in a little more background so that you can understand what's happeningcafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.

|authorisbn=Tania UnsworthAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Nowhere IslandAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=Meet Gil''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Just twelveWell, he is so determined to escape the care system – the system I must confess that constantly puts him there have been more than a few decades of technology in futureless places that are not homes – and find a home for himselfmy lifetime. He is en route to yet another fosterer, when he jumps into an anonymous car, and lets it ride him to his future. That future seems I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – me but that someone lives I'm left with his brother in a camp on an island between the two directions feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of a motorwayit is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, a place inaccessible I could research the possibilities and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety the probabilities and seclusionend up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. Them, I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a mute girl also finding a home there, albeit so much more successfullyway I could understand. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…|isbn=1804540080

|isbnauthor=0008530025Sunny Singh|title=Murder in the Family|author=Cara HunterHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeThrillers |summary=It was The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in December 2003 an unnamed city that fifteen-year-old Maura Howard came home and found has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the body of her stepfatherterrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, Luke Rydera wartime photographer and Abhi, in the garden of their West London homehotel manager. He had an injury on As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the back of his head which could have happened if he'd slipped down residents who are still alive in the steps but the vicious beating his face had taken was obviously deliberate. Twenty years laterhotel, no one has been charged he forms a bond with his murder Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and it's now the subject keeps on venturing out of ''Infamous'', a true-crime show. A group of experts has been brought together her room to review the evidence and try to take the investigation furthercapture what's happened through her photography. More to Although they only ever talk over the pointphone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they're going both wait to do this live on camera, episode see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by episode. There's no dump of the whole box set - and no shortage of cliffhangers. It's compelling viewingterrorists.|isbn=086154742X

|authorisbn=Judith Eagle1529153298|title=The Stolen SongbirdList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=CaroIt's mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is now missingPrime Minister. Her other mother(A woman? I mean, Ronniehonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, is having to go up North to take care of her sister who is unwellthough. So who is going to look after Caro? Women have been disappearing. Sent to stay with GamWell, someone Caro has heard her mother despisesthey've been murdered, she feels frustrated and confused and worriedbut to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. All Miv's upset because she's overheard that her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment father wants to practise her gymnastics are brought to a halt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian ladymove the family 'Down South'. When you's housere from Yorkshire, along with an orphan boyDown South is a frightening, Albieforeign place, who is living there toobest avoided. But she soon finds herself caught up in a mysteryFor Miv, as she discovers a painting of a bird hidden away inside the move would mean leaving her mum's old suitcasebest friend, Sharon, and all across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising peopleshe'll do anything to prevent that. Is She's not worried about the painting somehow linked to the gang? And what has happened to Carodangers or that her Mum's mother? Is she somehow involved in the mystery too?|isbn=0571363148stopped talking - to anyone.

|isbn=15291959771398524085|title=None of this is TrueHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Lisa JewellNicci French

|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=On Charlotte Salter was expected at her 45th husband's fiftieth birthday, Alix Summer celebrated with a crowd of friends in the Landsdown pub on Salisbury Road when she encountered Josie Fairparty but never turned up. SheHer children, toosons Niall, was out celebrating Paul and Ollie and her 45th birthdaydaughter, only she was just with Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, WalterAlec, is not. It turns out that not only are Alix Shortly afterwards, Etty and Josie birthday twinsGreg, they were both born in St Mary's hospital. Thatfind the body of Greg's where the similarities endfather, though: AlixDuncan Ackerley, with her husband, Nathan, are in the midst of a joyful, monied group of friends and whilst they're not ''exactly'' rowdy, they're enjoying themselvesriver. Josie, on It was an easy assumption for the other hand, holds her handbag close police to her tummy make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and you get then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the sense that Walter's not too happyguilt. He's The Salter children are not used to spending this much money on a meal - convinced but it is Josiethere's birthday after alllittle else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.

|isbn=18033651101035906708|authortitle=Chuck TingleDiva|titleauthor=Camp DamascusDaisy Goodwin|rating=34.5|genre=HorrorGeneral Fiction|summary=Love is love; although humans continue We tend to be confused by this sentimentthink of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Gay conversion therapy is ongoing. The UK government ruled out plans Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it a crime and, more manageable in the US, nearly 700 000 adults have received itStates. Although it is both When 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 secular mother who mercilessly exploited her and a religious prejudicemade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Chuck Tingle, in his new horror, ''Camp Damascus'', peels back the skin of Christian ''pray the gay away'' camps to show the reader the horror lurking withinJackie.

|isbnauthor=1803136383Christopher Edge|title=Tin Soldiers|author=David ChadwickBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary= Wat Tyler Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has returned from fighting in Vietnam under something the nickname of a cloud'The Black Hole'. What actually happened out there is gossiped All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about and nobody this new film format is sure exactly what took placevery different, but and they are swept up into an act of heroism leading adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to a rare battlefield commission followed by rank cowardice and disgrace seems to be the consensus. Wat himself next, can they figure out what on earth is keeping his cards close going on? Will they ever get back to his chestthe cinema, as he always does. and to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738

|isbnauthor=B0C7J9D21BRachel Greenlaw|title=A Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|author=A J LewisCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=Historical FictionTeens|summary=When we first meet our hero''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.'' Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, his name is Ettore one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and he lives at The House of Beautiful Swallowsany treasure that lies within. Idyllic as this might soundBut when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, itthey capture the island's a bordello leader and EttoreMira's mother died when father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he was born. He's not been short of mothersis secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, though - but for someone she sets off in search of his background a family secret that lies buried deep in late-eighteenth-century Amalfithe sea. With 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 difficult territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to obtain decent employment. The stint working with save the preparation future of anchovies didn't work out her home and bastards are considered bad luck on fishing boats. Ettore was nothing if not resourceful - and determined - and it was not long before he had a successful business as a guide for visitors. He was even saving some moneythe ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730

|author=Dean KoontzJames Sherwood Metts|title=After DeathPlanet Storyland|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''4. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|author=Jamie Littler|title=Arkspire|rating=45

|summary=Two sisters, Juniper Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apartautomation have been proceeding apace, are growing often replacing jobs they're paid to be chalk do and cheeseother tasks that took time to accomplish. Juniper is an eager hunter and trader in illicit magic, including relics from prior major wars left out in the Badlands. Elodie is intent on getting closer Just as they were beginning to power in one of the religious districts of Arkspire, perhaps even get used to become the child in line all this technological change and starting to inherit the power think of the Watcherother, the closest new ways to a ruler the district hasspend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and one of , along with it, all the five major victors in said earlier warmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily. Being trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the status of the whole family. But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to gain some power of her own – for good, or for very, very bad…|isbn=02415861431736128426

|author=Thiago de MoraesMatthew Tree|title=Old Gods New TricksWe'll Never Know

|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Meet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapesTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, larks a drunk and adventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powder, she could almost be thought a young goddess chronic underachiever whose dreams of nuisance. But just when she's being told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, the world changes. Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-out, even exceptional at any of electric cars, hits not just the town the school's in but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, his artistic passions all failed miserably and all that powers the Internet, just for our convenience's sake). Trixie, luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power who had endless crises of power from usself confidence. And so she begins her epic quest, So Tim applied himself to gather all the people that can steal it back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the Gods, ie the semi-deities, giantshis studies, half-gods cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and so on known as the trickstersset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn=178845295XB0CVFXPGP8

|author=Alexia CasaleA G Slatter|title=Sing if you Can't DanceThe Briar Book of the Dead

|genre=TeensFantasy|summary=It's hard enough to navigate your teenage years without suddenly finding that you're having to navigate a life-changing disability too, but thatThere's what Ven is dealing with after collapsing on stage in the middle a part of a dance performance me that was going wants to keep this just to change her lifemyself for however long I can. But she comes back fightingThis secret magic of my own, all mine, desperate at last. I just want to avoid enjoy it for a while.'' Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the pity staresworld, and desperate to get back to lies Silverton; a life thattown under the protection of the Briar's , a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as normal such since she was young, her training as she can possibly managea steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. Meanwhile thereWhen her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's a new (cute!) boy in schoolleader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her music A Level performance piece to try to sort outway left, right and just centre, Ellie uncovers the day-rare ability to-day traumas of all communicate with the challenges dead, putting her body continues at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to throw at her another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to navigate. So even though she cando as the Briar witches't dance anymorelegacy, might she be able everything they have sacrificed to sing her way through instead?survive, is under threat.|isbn=05713738011803364548

|authorisbn=Helen Peters1529900360|title=Friends and TraitorsThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=34|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=EnglandIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, WW2Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. Two young girls are new at His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the country pile called Stanbrookhelp of a psychologist only worked for a while. One is NancyFinally, destined to be in service all her life it seemswas Robin, like the female generations before herDelaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. The other is Sidney, a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school She knew that the involvement was something that has been removed there away from bomber flight-pathsthe man she loved needed. The girls are chalk and cheesenext case did look simple, and if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it sothough. But something is amiss, and first separately and then Two lovers were murdered in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be swimming pool of a rum 'unremote property in Bel Air. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is made of meetings with Germans, married to an extremely rich man and it's not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been attackedthe Italian. But surely which of them was the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhandprimary target?|isbn=1788004647

|isbn=02419961041529395224|title=Coming to Find YouLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Jane CorrySion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Nancy's mother and step-Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father were brutally stabbed at their Sussex farmhouse was a GP and her step-brotherRowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, Martin, has been convicted of their murder. We first meet Nancy outside particularly when he considered the court, after Martin receives a life sentence. The barrister tells her strain that she's received a 'silent sentence' being on- shecall put on his father's not been found guilty life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of anything but will have to live doing work experience with what happened a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the job for the rest of her lifehim. Of courseBefore long, ithe was at Liverpool University. It hadn's made worse because Nancy's rich t - she inherited five million pounds from her mother as with so many students - and the papers are making the most of itbeen his dream since he was a child. If anything, he''Farmhouse slaughter daughter'' is one favourite epithet and ''rich bitch'' might not d wanted to be printed but is undoubtedly spokena professional footballer.

|isbn=15294136800861541774|title=A Chateau Under Siege (A Bruno, Chief Nye of Police Novel)Pheasants|author=Martin WalkerSteve Burrows

|summary=One of the main events of the Sarlat tourist season is the re-enactment of the liberation of the town from the English in 1370 and BrunoDCI Domenic Jejeune's there close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to see the show meet up with some friendsan old ally, Guy Trueman. It's all been very carefully choreographed but goes badly wrong when, Kerquelin, the Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man playing one of the main characters is seriously injured when armed with a knife - and he departs from the scriptkilled a Ghurka. LuckilyInitially, his doctor is there and the man is whisked away in he faced a helicopter. A local doctor (and friend of Bruno) wonders about his chances charge of survival manslaughter but - as evidence came to light that suggested that he's a senior government employee, might have planned to murder the man who runs Frenchelon - . Now he could be facing the military has stepped indeath penalty. One daughter lives nearby Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and another, who lives in California, is flying in with some of her fatherwouldn's friends for a pre-arranged holidayt help Danny at all.

|isbnauthor=1529196388Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Trial|author=Rob RinderPerfect Passion Company

|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=Grant Cliveden was The Perfect Passion Company is a hero: 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 business, as Ness is planning to take a policeman who stood trip to Canada to get away for all that was good and honest and looked a while. Katie is coming out of a break up to by just about everyonewith a bad boyfriend, and so there was public uproar when he was murdered in plain sight jumps at the Old Baileychance to come home to Edinburgh. There's just one man in And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the frame for his murder - Jimmy Knight - and it's not too long before Knight appears in courtIsabel Dalhousie novels, charged but with Cliveden's murdersome new characters who quickly begin to charm. Knight was told that the best barrister for him was Jonathan Taylor Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-Cameron of Stag Court Chambers making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and itthere's Taylor-Cameron always her very helpful (and his pupilrather handsome) neighbour, Adam GreenWilliam, who eventually represent him. Knight's determined to plead not guilty, despite all Taylor-Cameron's recommendations to the contrary.lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596

|authorisbn=Essie Fox0811771741|title=The FascinationInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman

|genre=Historical FictionCrafts|summary= The Victorian era is incredibly over-romanticised as Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a setting for historical fiction (matched only, perhaps, by the Second World War) which has often led collection of knits from toys to more than a few writers mishandling itblankets. There Some will be quick knits - others are of the 's such a glut long, cosy afternoons in front of media set in the era that fire' variety. The projects are divided by the hallmarks wetime they've come ll take to associate with it are familiar complete - less than five hours, five to the point of being clichedten hours, hackneyed eventen to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All this is simply to illustrate that it would be an easy thing to do poorly. But despite thatthe projects are attractive, something about it still grabs me – modern and something useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about this book'social-media-worthy projects' but that's description did as wellme being picky.|isbn=1914585526

|author=Andrew CartmelDean Koontz|title=Death in Fine ConditionThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre=CrimeParanormal|summary=Cordelia Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really loves classic paperback crime fictionweird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and in particular it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a series called Sleuth Houndnice person. A really nice person. She spends her time hunting So fortunately for Benny it turns out copies that she can sell on for profitthe delivery to his house is a new friend, sometimes 'tweaking' thema bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to add value, in somewhat fraudulent wayshelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. One day she discovers a near perfect collection Spike is going to take care of these books after seeing them in the background Benny, and will certainly take care of a photograph on her drug dealerBenny's living room wallenemies, and so she sets about discovering where this collection isif he, Benny, and how she can steal it! ItHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's a next-level step in her petty crime career, but has she reached too far, and what will happen when the owner of the collection comes looking for their books?wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=17890989471662500491

|isbnauthor=1529507987Adam Stower|title=The Repair Shop Craft Book|author=Walker Books Murray and Sonia Albert (Illustrator)Bun

|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers |summary=I love ''The Repair Shop''. It's my go-to programme when I want Murray is supposed to be cheered up. After a hard dayhumble, there's nothing better than watching experts repair treasured items without ever mentioning what they're worth. You seetidy and friendly cat, the value one who is in what these possessions are worth able to the people who own them sleep and eat and eat and sleep and , well, whatever takes his fancy next of the memories they holdtwo. No expense appears to be spared But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the experts spend as much time catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and effort as is required to achieve the desired resultwhiffs. Regular viewers know the experts and they're all brilliant at explaining what This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is theyexpected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he're doing. But how did they start?ll have to do…|isbn=0008561249

|authorisbn=Nicole JarvisB0C47LV1PC|title=A Portrait in ShadowFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=Can you make a ''I want all of Florence to know my nameYo birthing person''joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.

Cast out from Rome, Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking an oasis in which her art can find a home and where her future can thrive rather than stagnate. But as some ''Fragility'' is set as she enters Florentine society she faces great opposition from the powerful Accademiacity of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the self-proclaimed guardians of the healing magics that through paintings have the power to protect restrictions imposed during the city and its citizens from plagues and curses. The all-male Accademia has hoarded power over art and architecture for centuries and guard it above all else. To them, Artemisia – an ambitious young woman who promises trouble and change – has no place amongst them and their society.|isbn=1803362340covid pandemic

|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH1529431735|title=The Grave ListenersWinter Visitor|author=William FrankJames Henry

|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The village It's February 1991 and Essex is isolated and poorbitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. It The return has come about because he's surrounded by had a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants letter from his ex- its bread-like fruit provides nutrition wife, saying that she's ill and its blossom provides herbal medicineshasn't long to live. The black wood of the forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and even gallows, if neededsent to a watery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?}}{{Frontpage|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The fear Glorious Race of being buried alive Magical Beasts|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Eli is a busy lad – by day an existential superstition apprentice in the village wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and that in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the reason Volushkafamily. A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the titular race, a drunken, selfglobe-indulgent, lazy lout trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of a man magical beast. This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is toleratedto dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran. |isbn=0571382231

|isbn=024162343X178763681X|title=Stolen HistoryKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Sathnam SangheraOrlando Murrin|rating=54|genre=Children's Non-FictionCrime|summary=I was the bad company other people got into Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school. I was disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed the existence of a 'god'. Where was the proof? In history lessons, it was probably worse stillBelgravia. Not too long after the end of WWII, I He didn't so much really want to learn about but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of getting both men and women to do what he wanted. Paul ''somehow'' got the British armyimpression that he's successes (and occasional failuresd be at the school to assist Paul, who had a broken arm, but we it didn't dwell on those) in what came to be called 'turn out that way. The teaching - and the coloniesproblems - are all his own. The one thing he hadn' as want to dispute what right the army had t expected was for someone to be there in the first placeturn up dead. Looking backUnfortunately, I still believe I he was right - but I regret the person who discovered the body and everyone knows that I lacked the maturity police consider that person to approach 'be the problem' politely. I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''prime suspect.

|author=Amanda CraigSarah Marsh|title=Three GracesA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5

|summary= Few styles After a bout of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of-the-nation novelsilence, everything about her life changes. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of Living in a time when the atmosphere use of the day and capture itsign language was seen as something only savages do, crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig Ellen is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: sent to a school where she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this pointis taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. She From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has such been teaching the deaf and using a gift for weaving system called Visible Speech. At the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her characters same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a way that feels natural and lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselvescomplicated tangle of espionage.|isbn= 140871468X1035401614

|isbn=14483093791803816759|title=Flesh The Unravelling|author=Will Gibson|rating=4|genre=Science Fiction|summary=It's 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the wealthy and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a bit of adventure and to get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. But then something goes horribly wrong with the AI system that now runs everything, making life easier for many, and Blood (DS McAvoy 11)riots start to spread. Finally, Joe gets to do some real policing. In the aftermath of the rioting 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, is also on the case. What went wrong? Did the system fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki's kidnapping connected?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529421284|title=Laying Out the Bones|author=David MarkKate Webb|rating=34.5

|summary=It's something was one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in a heatwave. In a gully, a surprise human skeleton came to find that you're deadthe surface and forensic testing proved the body to be Lee Geary, particularly when youwho had disappeared nine years earlier. He're thinking that you're actually on d been a break with your wife known drug user and childrenhad learning disabilities, so it could have been a simple case of misadventure but thatDI Matt Lockyer wasn's what happened to DS Aector McAvoyt convinced. Whilst he Geary was relieved to find that he was stilla townie, officially, alive, it so what was difficult for Detective Superintendent Trish Pharoah. he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? Her protegee - McAvoy - was still alive but There are connections to the partially clad man who'd dashed from her flat in suicide of Holly Gilbert and to two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the early hours time. Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad of the morning when it was obvious Major Crimes Review Unit (that someone was tampering with her car, was not. Thor Ingolfsson was Aector McAvoy's doppelganger - cold cases to you and not everyone who commented on this was doing so kindly. It had always been suspected that Pharoah was sweet on Aectorme) investigate.

|isbn=09571811670571379559|title=Blue Skies and Boat Trips: The Norfolk House of Brian LewisBroken Bricks|author=Alan MarshallFiona Williams

|genre=ArtLiterary Fiction|summary=There ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are few positive things which can in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be said about a substandard apartment when you’re on holiday happier there, but this timeinstead, she lives in trying to avoid looking at a problem I found myself looking more closely at a couple of pictures the house on the walls - and was completely taken by the work riverbank, built of Brian Lewisbroken bricks. I searched online and could only find ‘used’ versions Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of this book time, storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the print I wanted was ‘not available’delivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. OhThey have twin boys - Sonny and Max, dear - then a few doors down from the apartmentrainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, I found a gift shop much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with a stack of brand new books - and a framed print of the picture I wantedhis mother that she's his nanny.

|authorisbn=Simon Fox1529425867|title=DeadlockLost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Simon Mason

|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Late one night Graham Blake In Oxford, there are two D I Wilkins. Raymond Wilkins is late back from his shift on the forceof Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from a secret place, and join him on the runalways exquisitely dressed. They get togetherD I Ryan Wilkins, but barely begin to smell the whiff son of Southern trains when the Ryan and father of Ryan, is arrestednot. He's not any of those things. He's white, leaving Archie on the late express to Brightonoriginated from a trailer park, toting a tin barely educated (reading's not ''really'' his father was determined to keep away from thing) and his colleagues, wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and the bearer of trackies. They're usually in lime green or acid yellow. You might wonder if you're being introduced to a whole heap police procedural written for laughs. Well, you're not. The two men are just different sides of questionsthe same policing coin. Sometimes the combination works brilliantly well. Sometimes it's problematic.|isbn=1839944420

|author=Shalini BolandMosby Woods|title=The Silent BrideA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=34|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary= Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-materialThe West isn't the dominant force it once was. She is all he could possibly want Nobody in a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and setbest course of action. Governments are flailing. When the much-anticipated day arrivesA war here, Alice a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is walked down the aisle by her fatherin actual charge. Imagine then, beaming there was a man with pride and excitement as she surveys precognition. Imagine the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate strategic advantage in this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea asset; a man who the can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man at would be valuable, right? Perhaps the altar ismost valuable asset in history. Imagine then, who is waiting for her that this man loses this ability. What would governments do to become his wife.get it back?|isbn=1662507089B0C9SNG8R1