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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Dean Koontz0241636604|title=The House at the End of the WorldTrading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersAutobiography|summary=When If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you experience overwhelming tragedy 're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and feel that there his background is no one on your sidethe East End, you can either suck it upwhere he was familiar with violence, saddle up poverty and ride injustice. There was no posh public school on or you his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can retreat only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to your own private fortress on be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an island that sits snugly in internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a small chain of tiny dots on trader.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035021803|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the map and live out your days in peace and solitudeEnglish country village where she grew up. ThatShe's what Katie thought she was doing when she shut down back now because of a request for help from her old life to start afresh on Jacobbeloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's Ladder; close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and all would have the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the aforementioned peace and solitude village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were it in business together as antique hunters, she has not for felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the pesky US Government occupying Ringrocksplit, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the neighbouring island and perpetrating all manner of mischief in rebound from the name love of science her life, who was murdered) and Freya and quite possibly bringing about the end of all mankindJames have now divorced.|isbn=1662453159
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=T KingfisherAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=ThornhedgeAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=FantasyScience Fiction|summary=''You had a right Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to retake your placecome.''
T KingfisherI's latest novella is a lovely reimagining of a fairytale ve heard it said that 'technology' is well known and well belovedwhat happens after you're eighteen. But whilst Well, I must confess that there is have been more than a princess trapped few decades of technology in a tower, sleeping under an eternal enchantment, Thornhedge my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is not her story- frankly - quite frightening. Instead, our protagonist is Toadling Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who was stolen away by fairies when she was a new-born baby and secreted away to knows what they're talking about or the land of fairie where her childhood was spent being taught how to draw magic from her veins latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and cast spellswho could deliver information in a way I could understand.|isbn=1803364238
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor= B0CCCVRSGXSunny Singh|title=Stories 2|author=Richard F WalkerHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Short StoriesThrillers |summary= This The Hotel Arcadia is Richard F Walker's second volume of short storiesa luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. There Hiding from the terrorists who are thirteen in all rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and I took something from each of themAbhi, the hotel manager. There isn't a single one that doesn't deserve As Abhi continues to try to be among care remotely for the others or brings down residents who are still alive in the overall quality. It can hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be tricky cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to review short stories without giving too much awaycapture what's happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the phone, so I'll just pick two their friendship grows as Abhi tries to talk about help her keep safe and I think they give a general flavourboth wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=086154742X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17876366071529153298|title=The TrapList of Suspicious Things|author=Catherine Ryan HowardJennie Godfrey|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=It's a scene replicated all too often in the early hours of the morning1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Drunken revellers spilling out of clubs and looking for a way to get homeWomen have been disappearing. Some are lucky and manage Well, they've been murdered, but to get one of the few taxis availablehave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Others squash onto the night bus Miv's upset because she's overheard that will only go as far as one of her father wants to move the outlying villagesfamily 'Down South'. The woman all regret the 'taxi problemWhen you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, particularly in the light of 'the missing women'best avoided. For one young womanMiv, the final stop on the bus leaves move would mean leaving her a long way short of her homebest friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She had intended to ring someone to come and collect her - but her phone's dead. The bus had driven off before she had not worried about the chance to beg the bus driver to let dangers or that her use his. ThereMum's no option but stopped talking - to start walking - unsuitably clothed and in high-heeled shoesanyone.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=14059571741398524085|title=A Death at the PartyHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Amy StuartNicci French|rating=45
|genre=Crime
|summary=From the first page, we know that Nadine WalshCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party will not end wellbut never turned up. The victim Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - a man strangely - her husband, Alec, is dying when we first meet him not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Nadine consciously makes no effort to call Greg, find the body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the ambulance he so desperately needsriver. What we donIt was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't know is who stand the man is or why Nadine prefers to have him dieguilt. IThe Salter children are not convinced but there'd better give you a s little more background so that you else they can understand do but get on with their lives and wonder about what's happeningreally happened.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Tania Unsworth1035906708|title=Nowhere IslandDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We tend to think 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. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. 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 mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher Edge
|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet GilLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. Just twelveAll big movie fans, he is so determined they're looking forward to escape lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the care system – the system movie starts, they very quickly realise that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find a home for himself. He something about this new film format is en route to yet another fosterervery different, when he jumps and they are swept up into an anonymous car, and lets it ride him to his futureadventure they couldn't even imagine. That future seems But as they lurch from one film genre to be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in a camp the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on an island between ? Will they ever get back to the two directions of a motorwaycinema, a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and seclusion. Them, and a mute girl also finding a home there, albeit so much more successfully. 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…real lives?|isbn=18045400801839942738
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008530025Rachel Greenlaw|title=Murder in the Family|author=Cara HunterCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeTeens|summary=It was in December 2003 that fifteen-year-old Maura Howard came home and found ''I can hear the body song of her stepfather, Luke Ryder, in the garden of their West London homesea. He had an injury on the back The call of his head which could have happened if he'd slipped down the steps but deep, the vicious beating his face had taken was obviously deliberateanswering beat in my heart. Twenty years later, no one has been charged with his murder and it's now the subject of ''Infamous'' Rosevear, a true-crime showremote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. A group Mira, like her mother before her, is one of experts has been brought together the seven who swim out to review survey the evidence ruins – rescuing any survivors and to take any treasure that lies within. But when the investigation further. More Council Watch lays a trap to end the pointwrecking, theycapture the island're going s leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to do this live on cameraguide her, episode by episodeshe sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. There's no dump 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 whole box set - and no shortage heart of cliffhangers. Itthe smuggler's compelling viewingterritory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
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{{Frontpage
|author=Judith EagleJames Sherwood Metts|title=The Stolen SongbirdPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Caro's mother, Things have been a world-famous whistlerbit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, has failed often replacing jobs they're paid to return home from her recent work trip abroad do and is now missing. Her other mother, Ronnie, is having to go up North tasks that took time to take care of her sister who is unwellaccomplish. So who is going Just as they were beginning to look after Caro? Sent get used to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, she feels frustrated all this technological change and confused and worried. All her summer holiday plans starting to think of building herself some equipment other, new ways to practise her gymnastics are brought to a halt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's housespend time, along with came an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there tooawful pandemic. But she soon finds herself caught up in a mysteryLife was pretty much shut down and, as she discovers a painting of a bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcasealong with it, and all across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising peoplemany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily. Is the painting somehow linked to the gang? And what has happened to Caro's mother? Is she somehow involved in the mystery too?|isbn=05713631481736128426
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529195977Matthew Tree|title=None of this is True|author=Lisa JewellWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=On her 45th birthdayTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, Alix Summer celebrated with a crowd of friends in the Landsdown pub on Salisbury Road when she encountered Josie Fair. She, too, was out celebrating her 45th birthday, only she was just with her husband, Walter. It turns out that not only are Alix drunk and Josie birthday twins, they were both born in St Mary's hospital. That's where the similarities end, though: Alix, with her husband, Nathan, are in the midst chronic underachiever whose dreams of a joyful, monied group being exceptional at any of friends his artistic passions all failed miserably and whilst they're not ''exactly'' rowdy, they're enjoying themselveswho had endless crises of self confidence. JosieSo Tim applied himself to his studies, on the other hand, holds her handbag close to her tummy cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and you get the sense that Walter's not too happy. He's not used to spending this much money on a meal - set himself high but it is Josie's birthday after allachievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1803365110|author=Chuck TingleA G Slatter|title=Camp DamascusThe Briar Book of the Dead|rating=3.5|genre=HorrorFantasy|summary=Love is love; although humans continue '' There's a part of me that wants to be confused by keep this sentimentjust to myself for however long I can. Gay conversion therapy is ongoingThis secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. The UK government ruled out plans I just want to make enjoy it for a crime andwhile.'' Within a remote mountain pass, in far away from the USworld, nearly 700 000 adults have received itlies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's, a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Although it Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is both the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a secular steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and a religious prejudicepotions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader, Chuck Tingleand Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, in his new horrorright and centre, ''Camp Damascus''Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, peels back putting her at the skin heart of a maelstrom of Christian ''pray chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the gay awayBriar witches'' camps legacy, everything they have sacrificed to show the reader the horror lurking withinsurvive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18031363831529900360|title=Tin SoldiersThe Ghost Orchid|author=David ChadwickJonathan Kellerman|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= Wat Tyler has returned from fighting 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 help of a psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in Vietnam under something the swimming pool of a cloudremote property in Bel Air. What actually happened out there is gossiped about He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and nobody she is sure exactly what took place, but married to an act of heroism leading to a rare battlefield commission followed by rank cowardice extremely rich man and disgrace seems to be it's not the consensus. Wat himself is keeping his cards close to his chest, as he always doesItalian. But which of them was the primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0C7J9D21B1529395224|title=A Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=A J LewisSion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=Historical FictionAnimals and Wildlife|summary=When we first meet our hero, his name is Ettore and he lives at The House of Beautiful SwallowsSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. Idyllic as this might sound, it's His father was a bordello GP and EttoreRowlands didn's mother died t want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he was born. He's not been short of mothers, though considered the strain that being on- but for someone of call put on his background in late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, itfather's difficult to obtain decent employmentlife. The stint working with When he was seventeen he took the preparation opportunity of anchovies didn't doing work out experience with a family friend who was a vet and bastards are considered bad luck on fishing boatswas convinced this was the job for him. Ettore Before long, he was nothing if not resourceful at Liverpool University. It hadn't - and determined as with so many students - and it been his dream since he was not long before he had a successful business as a guide for visitorschild. He was even saving some moneyIf anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Dean Koontz0861541774|title=After Death|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 A Nye 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''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{FrontpagePheasants|author=Jamie Littler|title=ArkspireSteve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Two sisters, Juniper DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and Elodieformer colleague, born fifteen minutes apartDanny Maik, are growing has taken a short holiday in Singapore to be chalk and cheesemeet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Juniper is an eager hunter Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and trader in illicit magic, including relics from prior major wars left out in the Badlandshe killed a Ghurka. Elodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of the religious districts Initially, he faced a charge of Arkspire, perhaps even manslaughter but evidence came to become the child in line light that suggested that he might have planned to inherit the power of murder the Watcher, the closest to a ruler the district has, and one of the five major victors in said earlier warman. Being trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the status of Now he could be facing the whole familydeath penalty. But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to gain some power of her own – for good, or for very, very bad…|isbn=0241586143help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Thiago de MoraesAlexander McCall Smith|title=Old Gods New TricksThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Meet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapesThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, larks run by Ness and adventures involving flooding operating as an alternative to all the school aircon with fart powderonline apps in providing a more personal, she could almost be thought a young goddess of nuisancetailored service. But just when Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she's being told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteachercould come and look after the business, the world changesas Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-Katie is coming out, even of electric cars, hits not just the town the school's in but the entire planet (apart from mobile phonesa break up with a bad boyfriend, and all that powers so jumps at the Internet, just for our convenience's sake). Trixie, luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power of power from uschance to come home to Edinburgh. And so she begins her epic questthis new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to gather all the people that can steal it back – namely 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters from myth that have past form who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in stealing from the Godsrunning a business, ie the semior in match-deitiesmaking, giantsbut Ness has full confidence in her abilities, half-gods and so on known as the tricksters.there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=178845295X1846976596
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alexia Casale0811771741|title=Sing if you Can't DanceInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=54|genre=TeensCrafts|summary=ItMelissa Leapman's hard enough to navigate your teenage years without suddenly finding that you're having to navigate 'InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a life-changing disability too, but that's what Ven is dealing with after collapsing on stage in the middle collection of a dance performance that was going knits from toys to change her lifeblankets. But she comes back fightingSome will be quick knits - others are of the 'long, desperate to avoid cosy afternoons in front of the pity stares, and desperate to get back to a life thatfire's as normal as she can possibly managevariety. Meanwhile thereThe projects are divided by the time they's a new (cute!) boy in schoolll take to complete - less than five hours, her music A Level performance piece five to try ten hours, ten to sort outtwenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the projects are attractive, modern and just the dayuseable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-tomedia-day traumas of all the challenges her body continues to throw at her to navigateworthy projects' but that's me being picky. So even though she can't dance anymore, might she be able to sing her way through instead?|isbn=0571373801
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{{Frontpage
|author=Helen PetersDean Koontz|title=Friends and TraitorsThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre=Confident ReadersParanormal|summary=EnglandBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, WW2he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Two young girls are new at Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the country pile called Stanbrook. thing that has trashed his house! One The thing is Nancy, destined Benny is the very last person to be in service deserve all her life it seems, like the female generations before herthis bad luck. The other He is Sidney, a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from bomber flight-pathsnice person. The girls are chalk and cheese, and if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it soA really nice person. But something So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is amissa new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, and first separately and then in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a rum 'ungood person. Midnight deliveries are received under cover Spike is going to take care of secrecyBenny, talk is made and will certainly take care of meetings with GermansBenny's enemies, if he, Benny, and not only that, Harper (a local Spitfire factory has been attackedwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. But surely the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhand?|isbn=17880046471662500491
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241996104Adam Stower|title=Coming to Find You|author=Jane CorryMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers |summary=Nancy's mother Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and step-father were brutally stabbed at their Sussex farmhouse sleep and her step-brother, Martinwell, has been convicted whatever takes his fancy next of their murder. We first meet Nancy outside the court, after Martin receives a life sentencetwo. The barrister tells her that sheBut he's received a 'silent sentence' - shebad magician's not cat, so his favourite bun has been found guilty of anything but will have to live with what happened for the rest of her life. Of courseturned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, it's made worse because Nancy's rich - she inherited five million pounds from her mother - and the papers are making catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the most regular back garden, but into a world of itfrightening adventure and whiffs. ''Farmhouse slaughter daughter'' This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one favourite epithet much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he''rich bitch'' might not be printed but is undoubtedly spoken.ll have to do…|isbn=0008561249
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|isbn=1529413680B0C47LV1PC|title=A Chateau Under Siege (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)Fragility|author=Martin WalkerMosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|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 BrunoCan you make a ''Yo birthing person's there to see the show with some friends. It's all been very carefully choreographed but goes badly wrong when, Kerquelinjoke? And if you could, is the man playing one of question should you make it? Or is the main characters question if you did, would it land? The catch is seriously injured when he departs from that the scriptanswer for both could well be.... no. Luckily, his doctor  ''Fragility'' is there and set as the man is whisked away in a helicopter. A local doctor (and friend city of Bruno) wonders about his chances of survival but - as he's a senior government employeePortland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the man who runs Frenchelon - restrictions imposed during the military has stepped in. One daughter lives nearby and another, who lives in California, is flying in with some of her father's friends for a pre-arranged holiday.covid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291963881529431735|title=The TrialWinter Visitor|author=Rob RinderJames Henry|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Grant Cliveden was a hero: a policeman who stood for all that was good and honest It's February 1991 and looked up to by just about everyoneEssex is bitingly cold, so there was public uproar when he was murdered in plain sight at which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the Old Baileymore surprising. ThereHe's just one man in d been exiled on the frame Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about because he's had a letter from his murder ex- Jimmy Knight - and it's not too long before Knight appears in courtwife, charged with Clivedensaying that she's murder. Knight was told that the best barrister for him was Jonathan Taylor-Cameron of Stag Court Chambers ill and ithasn's Taylor-Cameron and his pupil, Adam Green, who eventually represent himt long to live. KnightIt's determined hard to plead not guiltyfeel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, despite all Taylor-Cameron's recommendations stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the contraryboot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{Frontpage
|author=Essie FoxAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The FascinationGlorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Historical FictionConfident Readers|summary= The Victorian era Eli is incredibly over-romanticised as a setting for historical fiction (matched onlybusy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, perhapsand in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, by too – for there is a generation missing in the Second World War) which has often led to more than a family. A few writers mishandling it. Thereshort years ago, Eli's such parents were both lost to the titular race, a glut of media set globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the era that company of a magical beast. This has made the hallmarks we've come race anathema to associate with it are familiar the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to the point of being clicheda confession from gran, hackneyed even. All this Eli knows his only hope is simply to illustrate that it would be an easy thing dare to do poorly. But despite thatenter what he most hates, something about it still grabs me with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end and something about this book's description did as wellthe only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=19145855260571382231
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Andrew Cartmel178763681X|title=Death in Fine ConditionKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Orlando Murrin|rating=34
|genre=Crime
|summary=Cordelia really loves classic paperback crime fiction, and Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in particular a series called Sleuth HoundBelgravia. She spends her time hunting out copies that she can sell on for profit, sometimes He didn'tweaking' them, t really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of getting both men and women to add value, in somewhat fraudulent waysdo what he wanted. One day she discovers a near perfect collection of these books after seeing them in Paul ''somehow'' got the background of a photograph on her drug dealerimpression that he's living room walld be at the school to assist Paul, and so she sets about discovering where this collection iswho had a broken arm, but it didn't turn out that way. The teaching - and how she can steal it! the problems - are all his own. ItThe one thing he hadn's a next-level step in her petty crime career, but has she reached too fart expected was for someone to turn up dead. Unfortunately, he was the person who discovered the body and what will happen when everyone knows that the owner of police consider that person to be the collection comes looking for their books?|isbn=1789098947prime suspect.
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|isbnauthor=1529507987Sarah Marsh|title=The Repair Shop Craft Book|author=Walker Books and Sonia Albert (Illustrator)A Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5|genre=Children's Non-General Fiction|summary=I love ''The Repair Shop''After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. It's my go-to programme Living in a time when I want the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to be cheered up. After a hard dayschool where she is taught to lip read, there's nothing better than watching experts repair treasured items without ever mentioning what they're worthbut physically restrained from signing. You seeFrom here, the value is she ends up in what these possessions are worth to another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the people who own them deaf and the memories they holdusing a system called Visible Speech. No expense appears to be spared and At the experts spend as much same time , Bell is working on other inventions and effort as is required to achieve the desired result. Regular viewers know the experts ideas, and they're all brilliant at explaining what it is they're doingEllen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage. But how did they start?|isbn=1035401614
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|authorisbn=Nicole Jarvis1803816759|title=A Portrait in ShadowThe Unravelling|author=Will Gibson|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Science Fiction|summary=It''I want all s 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the wealthy and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a bit of Florence adventure and to know my name'' Cast out from Romeget 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, Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking an oasis in which her art can find a home and where her future can thrive rather than stagnateriots start to spread. But as Finally, Joe gets to do some as she enters Florentine society she faces great opposition from real policing. In the powerful Accademia, the self-proclaimed guardians aftermath of the healing magics that through paintings have rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and Joe is assigned to bring her home. Joe isn't the power only one trying to protect the city and its citizens from plagues and curses. The allsave Suki -male Accademia has hoarded power over art Dylan, a British superfan and architecture for centuries and guard it above all else. To themtech nerd, Artemisia – an ambitious young woman who promises trouble and change – has no place amongst them and their societyis also on the case.|isbn=1803362340What went wrong? Did the system fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki's kidnapping connected?
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH1529421284|title=The Grave ListenersLaying Out the Bones|author=William FrankKate Webb|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by was one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in a Witching Forestheatwave. And In a gully, a human skeleton came to the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition surface and its blossom provides herbal medicinesforensic testing proved the body to be Lee Geary, who had disappeared nine years earlier. The black wood He'd been a known drug user and had learning disabilities, so it could have been a simple case of the forest provides heat and warmthmisadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn't convinced. Geary was a townie, roofs so what was he doing out on homes, Salisbury Plain alone? There are connections to the suicide of Holly Gilbert and even gallows, if neededto two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the time. The fear Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village Major Crimes Review Unit (that's cold cases to you and that is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is toleratedme) investigate.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=024162343X0571379559|title=Stolen HistoryThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Sathnam SangheraFiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-Literary Fiction|summary=I was ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the bad company other story of four people got into at school. I was disruptive Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in religious education classes because I disputed the existence house on the riverbank, built of a 'god'broken bricks. Where was the proof? In history lessonsInsubstantial as it might look, it was probably worse still. Not too long after 's stood the end passage of WWIItime, I didn't so much want to learn about the British army's successes (storms and occasional failuresfloods. Her husband, Richard, but we didn't dwell on those) in what came struggles to be called 'the colonies' as want grow his vegetables, to dispute what right complete the army had delivery rounds - and to be there bring in the first placesufficient money. Looking backThey have twin boys - Sonny and Max, I still believe I was right - but I regret that I lacked the maturity to approach 'the problem' politelyrainbow twins. I wish ISonny'd had Sathnam Sangheras colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they'Stolen Historyre related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Amanda Craig1529425867|title=Three GracesLost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Simon Mason
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her characters 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 themselves.
|isbn= 140871468X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1448309379
|title=Flesh and Blood (DS McAvoy 11)
|author=David Mark
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=ItIn 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 something not any of those things. He's white, originated from a surprise to find that youtrailer park, barely educated (reading's not ''really''re dead, particularly when youhis thing) and his wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackies. They're thinking that usually in lime green or acid yellow. You might wonder if you're actually on being introduced to a break with your wife and childrenpolice procedural written for laughs. Well, but thatyou's what happened to DS Aector McAvoyre not. Whilst he was relieved to find that he was still, officially, alive, it was difficult for Detective Superintendent Trish PharoahThe two men are just different sides of the same policing coin. Her protegee - McAvoy - was still alive but the partially clad man who'd dashed from her flat in Sometimes the early hours of the morning when it was obvious that someone was tampering with her car, was notcombination works brilliantly well. Thor Ingolfsson was Aector McAvoySometimes it's doppelganger - and not everyone who commented on this was doing so kindly. It had always been suspected that Pharoah was sweet on Aectorproblematic.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0957181167Mosby Woods|title=Blue Skies and Boat Trips: The Norfolk of Brian Lewis|author=Alan MarshallA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=54|genre=ArtLiterary Fiction|summary=There are few positive things which can be said about a substandard apartment when you’re on holiday but this time, The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in trying the West is quite sure how to avoid looking at a problem I found myself looking more closely at a couple of pictures on the walls - and was completely taken by mend this or even if mending it is the work best course of Brian Lewisaction. I searched online and could only find ‘used’ versions of this book and the print I wanted was ‘not available’Governments are flailing. OhA war here, dear - a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then a few doors down from the apartment, I found there was a gift shop man with precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a stack of brand new books - and a framed print man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the picture I wantedmost valuable asset in history. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1
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