Changes

|authorisbn=Rachel Harrison0241636604|title=Bad DollsThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesAutobiography|summary=ItIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you's been some time since I've read any horrorre unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. I had a couple of misspent teen years reading Stephen King, borrowing A hoodie and jeans replaces the books from a boy I fancied at school pin-stripe suit and scaring myself half silly his background is the East End, where he was familiar with them violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the point that I couldn't shut my bedroom curtains at night for fear London School of the vampires outside! Economics. Don't worry Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - this short story collection isn't like and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that! most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It doesnwas his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035021803|title=The Antique Hunter't have those jump scares, and I didns Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=It't have s twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to read it during daylight hours only! the English country village where she grew up. But it is creepyShe's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and I found most of that feeling came from the fact that these are stories about womenCarole's close friend, living normal livesArthur Crockleford, is dead and that at the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least . Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in partbusiness together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the horrors arises from very normal situations such as man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in a breakupcafe, trying a new dieting appmet and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, going to a hen party who was murdered) and Freya and a coping with griefJames have now divorced.|isbn=1803363932

|isbn=1394159544AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Recycling for DummiesAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Sarah WinklerBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)

|genre=LifestyleScience Fiction|summary=''Recycling one ton Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of plastic can save up things to 16.3 barrels of oilcome.''

I've heard it said that 'Recycling one ton of paper can save 17 trees from being cut down.technology'is what happens after you' If you send an apple core to landfill, it will take between 6 months and 2 years to decomposere eighteen. A glass bottle will take up to 1 million years. As a just-post-WWII babyWell, I faced must confess that there have been more than a dilemma: reducing, reusing and recycling is part few decades of technology in my DNAlifetime. NEVER throw away anything that might I've kept up reasonably well with what'possiblys advantageous to me but I'' come in handy now or in m left with the future. NEVER buy anything if you can cobble together something feeling that would serve the purposeit's all getting away from me. Almost everything can be used one more time and any purchase must pass the test Some of 'Is this absolutely essential?' it is - frankly - quite frightening. On the other handOf course, I suspected I was guilty of wishcycling: assuming that something must be recyclable (toothpaste tubes - could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm looking at you) and dropping it in reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the kerbside binlatest conspiracy theorist. Yes, I needed people I knew I could go searching on the internet - trust and get conflicting advice - but what who could deliver information in a way I needed was a recycling biblecould understand.s

|author=Lauren St JohnSunny Singh|title=Finding WonderHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers |summary=Roo's life The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has become almost impossibly difficultsuddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Her mum died when she was youngHiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and now she finds herself awoken Abhi, the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the middle of the night hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by the police banging events, and keeps on venturing out of her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his way room to the corner shop try to buy a lottery ticket. When asked capture what other family she has, she can only name 's happened through her aunt, Joni, who she knows her dad didn't think very highly ofphotography. But she has no one elseAlthough they only ever talk over the phone, and so off she goes their friendship grows as Abhi tries to live with help her unreliable aunt. Things continue keep safe and they both wait to get worse for Roo, as when she and Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, it breaks down in see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!terrorists.|isbn=0571376169086154742X

|isbn=14483097431529153298|title=The Devil Stone (DCI Christine Caplan)List of Suspicious Things|author=Caro RamsayJennie Godfrey|rating=45|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=In the village of Cronchie on the West coast of ScotlandIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, five members of a wealthy honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family are found , though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. The only item missing from the home is the Devil Stone: myth says Miv's upset because she's overheard that if her father wants to move the stone family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is removed from Otterburn Housea frightening, foreign place, death will followbest avoided. The only suspects are known Satanists but in many waysFor Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's an easy conclusion given not worried about the dangers or that two of them her Mum'discovered' the body. The Senior Investigating Office is DCI Bob Oswald but when he disappears, DCI Christine Caplan is pulled in s stopped talking - to 'shadow' himanyone.

|authorisbn= Kay Chronister1398524085|title= Desert Creatures|rating= 4|genre= Dystopian Fiction|summary= With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope.|isbn=1803364998}}{{FrontpageHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Christopher Fowler|title=Word MonkeyNicci French

|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary= ItCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's the first of August in the middle of a cool wet summer in East Angliafiftieth birthday party but never turned up. I decided not to swim at the pool in favour of going to my beach hutHer children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. The weather closed inare all worried but - strangely - her husband, rain arrivedAlec, and I decided is not to do that either. When I finished reading this bookShortly afterwards, I realised it was because (a) I wanted to finish reading this book Etty and (b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shack. No spoiler alertsGreg, find the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler body of Greg'was' – and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosiss father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. There is something very strange about being made It was an easy assumption for the police to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you make that he is dying, Duncan had murdered Charlie and you know then committed suicide when he actually is at that point, because he doescouldn't stand the guilt. He didThe Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.|isbn=0857529625

|isbn=15290776991035906708|title=The Raging Storm (Two Rivers)Diva|author=Ann CleevesDaisy Goodwin

|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=''It's all bloody peculiarWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, isn't itbut she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, Sir?'' Well yesNew York, it is. Jem Rosco blew into the local pub one evening in the middle of an autumn gale, stayed for about a month and then turned up, naked December 1923 and dead, in a small boat, anchored in Scully Cove close only moved to the village of Greystone, in DevonAthens when she was thirteen. Rosco had the status of a national treasure: a renowned adventurer, round the world sailor and all round ''celebrityHer original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas'to make it more manageable in the States. I ''nearly'' said 'allWhen she was back in Athens -round good egg' but as we'll find out, he supposedly so that she could be more than get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a little bit close with money mother who mercilessly exploited her and his background isn't exactly an open bookmade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie. Where did he get the money for his first boat? How did he finance the trip?

|isbnauthor=B0CC9W7GLRChristopher Edge|title=On the Beach: The Winter Visitor|author=Chris Green and Jenny FiondaBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=54|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=Kit Lucas and Teal were just beginning to wonder whether it was better to be his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at home, bored but warmtheir local cinema, or frozen cold and building sand sculptures on a snowy beach when a large slab place that has the nickname of silvery ice drifted onto the shoreline'The Black Hole'. On top All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of the ice was a polar bear. exciting films, and many, many snacks! As the ice bumped onto the sandHowever, as the bear woke and with wobbly legs moved from the ice. Kit was all for making a run for itmovie starts, but Teal knew they very quickly realise that the bear was hungry and gave him one apple something about this new film format is very different, and then anotherthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. He obviously needed But as they lurch from one film genre to be taken home the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on ? Will they ever get back to the bus cinema, and given a good meal and somewhere to sleep. What else would you dotheir real lives?|isbn=1839942738

|author=Claire NorthRachel Greenlaw|title=House of OdysseusCompass and Blade|rating=3.5|genre= Literary Fiction Teens|summary= ''What could matter more than love?I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.''

The follow-up to Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left offwrecks. In the palace of OdysseusMira, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without like her mother before her husband, is one of the seven who sailed swim out to war at Troy survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and then by divine intervention never returned homeany treasure that lies within. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the throne of wrecking, they capture the Western Isles. Having survived – politically island's leader and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to IthacaMira's shoresfather. Desperate to save him from death, Queen Penelope Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is on the brink as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a fragile peacefamily secret that lies buried deep in the sea. One that shatters however with 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 return heart of Orestesthe smuggler's territory, King Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of Mycenae, her home and his sister Elektra, seeking refugethe ones she holds most dear.|isbn=03565160750008664730

|isbnauthor=1529427045James Sherwood Metts|title=The Girl in the Eagle's Talons|author=Karin SmirnoffPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they''Life has more re paid to do and other tasks that took time to offer than people - prime numbers for example''accomplish. Lisbeth Salander has headed north Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to the small town think of Gasskasother, where the so-far-untapped natural resources of the area have sparked a gold rush. The criminal underworld has not been slow in coming forward. Salander's niece's mother is the latest woman in the area new ways to have vanished without tracespend time, along came an awful pandemic. It Life was only pretty much shut down and, along with reluctance that Salander became her niece's guardian but it quickly becomes obvious that Svala is a remarkably gifted teenager who's unaware of , all the part Salander played in her father's deathmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426

|title=We'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Our narrator was a scholarship day boy at the London-based public school where he met Ralph Finns. It was an unusual relationship as Ralph was a boarder and had money Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to throw around on be different from his father, a Rolex watch, vintage wines drunk and a state-chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of-the-art sound system. Both were probably quite surprised when they became almost friends his artistic passions all failed miserably and certainly more than acquaintances. Finns who had no intention endless crises of going on to University, unlike our storyteller who had a place at Wolverton College in Wellingford, the UK's third most prestigious universityself confidence. Before going up, he took up a loose invitation So Tim applied himself to visit Ralph at his homestudies, Clouds Manor in West Dorsetcultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8

|author=Dean KoontzA G Slatter|title=The House at the End of the World|rating=4|genre=Thrillers|summary=When you experience overwhelming tragedy and feel that there is no one on your side, you can either suck it up, saddle up and ride on or you can retreat to your own private fortress on an island that sits snugly in a small chain of tiny dots on the map and live out your days in peace and solitude. That's what Katie thought she was doing when she shut down her old life to start afresh on Jacob's Ladder; and all would have been the aforementioned peace and solitude were it not for the pesky US Government occupying Ringrock, the neighbouring island and perpetrating all manner of mischief in the name Briar Book of science and quite possibly bringing about the end of all mankind.|isbn=1662453159}}{{Frontpage|author=T Kingfisher|title=ThornhedgeDead

|summary=''You had There's a right part of me that wants to retake your placekeep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.''

T KingfisherWithin a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's latest novella is , a lovely reimagining family of a fairytale that is well known witches who protect the town and well belovedthe wider world from the Darklands. But whilst there Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a princess trapped in a towersteward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, sleeping under an eternal enchantmentthe town's leader, Thornhedge is not and Ellie takes her place beside her story. InsteadAs challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, our protagonist is Toadlingputting her at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who was stolen away by fairies when she was a new-born baby to trust and secreted away determine what to do as the land of fairie where her childhood was spent being taught how Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to draw magic from her veins and cast spellssurvive, is under threat.|isbn=18033642381803364548

|isbn= B0CCCVRSGX1529900360|title=Stories 2The Ghost Orchid|author=Richard F WalkerJonathan Kellerman

|genre=Short StoriesCrime|summary= This is Richard F WalkerIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's second volume of short storiesfault 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. There are thirteen in all His assertions that there were only open-and I took something from each -shut cases which didn't need the help of thema psychologist only worked for a while. There isn Finally, it was Robin, Delaware't a single one s partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that doesn't deserve to be among the others or brings down man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the overall qualityswimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. It can be tricky He was the heir to review short stories without giving too much away, so I'll just pick two an Italian shoe empire and she is married to talk about an extremely rich man and I think they give a general flavourit's not the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?

|isbn=17876366071529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The TrapSecret Life of a Vet|author=Catherine Ryan HowardSion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeAnimals and Wildlife|summary=It's a scene replicated all too often in the early hours of the morningSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. Drunken revellers spilling out of clubs and looking for His father was a way to get home. Some are lucky GP and manage Rowlands didn't want to get one of follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the few taxis available. Others squash onto the night bus strain that will only go as far as one of the outlying villagesbeing on-call put on his father's life. The woman all regret When he was seventeen he took the 'taxi problem', particularly in the light opportunity of 'doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the missing women'job for him. For one young womanBefore long, the final stop on the bus leaves her a long way short of her homehe was at Liverpool University. She had intended to ring someone to come and collect her It hadn't - as with so many students - but her phone's dead. The bus had driven off before she had the chance to beg the bus driver to let her use been hisdream since he was a child. ThereIf anything, he's no option but d wanted to start walking - unsuitably clothed and in high-heeled shoesbe a professional footballer.

|isbn=14059571740861541774|title=A Death at the PartyNye of Pheasants|author=Amy StuartSteve Burrows

|summary=From the first page, we know that Nadine WalshDCI Domenic Jejeune's party will not end wellclose friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. The victim Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - is dying when we first meet him and Nadine consciously makes no effort he killed a Ghurka. Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to call murder the ambulance he so desperately needsman. What we don't know is who Now he could be facing the man is or why Nadine prefers to have him diedeath penalty. I'd better give you Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a little more background so that you can understand whatdiplomatic incident and wouldn's happeningt help Danny at all.

|author=Tania UnsworthAlexander McCall Smith|title=Nowhere IslandThe Perfect Passion Company

|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Meet GilThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Just twelveNess has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, he as Ness is so determined planning to escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find take a home trip to Canada to get away for himselfa while. He Katie is en route coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to yet another fosterercome home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, when he jumps into bringing us to an anonymous carEdinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and lets it ride him the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to his futurecharm. That future seems to be Katie has no experience in running a business, or in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – match-making, but that someone lives with his brother Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0811771741|title=InstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=4|genre=Crafts|summary=Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a camp on an island between collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the two directions 'long, cosy afternoons in front of a motorwaythe fire' variety. The projects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough ten to provide for their safety twenty hours and seclusionmore than twenty hours. ThemAll the projects are attractive, modern and a mute girl also finding a home there, albeit so much more successfullyuseable. 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=1804540080I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.

|isbnauthor=0008530025Dean Koontz|title=Murder in the Family|author=Cara HunterThe Bad Weather Friend

|genre=CrimeParanormal|summary=It was in December 2003 that fifteen-year-old Maura Howard came home and found the body of her stepfather, Luke Ryder, in the garden of their West London homeBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He had an injury on the back of loses his head which could have happened if job, he'd slipped down the steps but the vicious beating loses his fiancee, and his face had taken was obviously deliberatehouse gets trashed. Twenty years laterOh, no one and someone has been charged with delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his murder home, and it's now possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the subject of ''Infamous''thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a true-crime shownice person. A group of experts really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been brought together sent to review the evidence and to take the investigation furtherhelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. More to the point, they're Spike is going to do this live on cameratake care of Benny, episode by episode. Thereand will certainly take care of Benny's no dump of the whole box set - enemies, if he, Benny, and no shortage of cliffhangers. ItHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's compelling viewingwild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491

|author=Judith EagleAdam Stower|title=The Stolen SongbirdMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Caro's mother, Murray is supposed to be a world-famous whistlerhumble, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad tidy and is now missing. Her other motherfriendly cat, Ronnie, is having to go up North to take care of her sister who is unwell. So one who is going able to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, she feels frustrated sleep and eat and eat and confused sleep and worried. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics are brought to a halt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, along with an orphan boywell, Albie, who is living there toowhatever takes his fancy next of the two. But she soon finds herself caught up in a mystery, as she discovers a painting of he's a bird hidden away inside her mumbad magician's old suitcasecat, and all across London so his favourite bun has been turned into a fearsome gang hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the Snakes are thieving artworks regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and terrorising peoplewhiffs. Is the painting somehow linked This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to the gang? And what has happened to Carobe honest, but he's mother? Is she somehow involved in the mystery too?turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=05713631480008561249

|isbn=1529195977B0C47LV1PC|title=None of this is TrueFragility|author=Lisa JewellMosby Woods|rating=54|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=On her 45th birthdayCan you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, Alix Summer celebrated with a crowd of friends in is the question should you make it? Or is the Landsdown pub on Salisbury Road when she encountered Josie Fair. Shequestion if you did, too, was out celebrating her 45th birthday, only she was just with her husband, Walter. It turns out would it land? The catch is that not only are Alix and Josie birthday twins, they were the answer for both born in St Mary's hospitalcould well be.... no. That's where the similarities end, though: Alix, with her husband, Nathan, are in the midst of a joyful, monied group of friends and whilst they 're not 'Fragility'exactly'' rowdyis set as the city of Portland, they're enjoying themselves. JosieOregon, on cautiously begins to emerge from the other hand, holds her handbag close to her tummy and you get restrictions imposed during the sense that Walter's not too happy. He's not used to spending this much money on a meal - but it is Josie's birthday after all.covid pandemic

|isbn=18033651101529431735|authortitle=Chuck TingleThe Winter Visitor|titleauthor=Camp DamascusJames Henry|rating=3.54|genre=HorrorCrime|summary=Love It's February 1991 and Essex is love; although humans continue to be confused by this sentiment. Gay conversion therapy is ongoing. The UK government ruled out plans to make it a crime andbitingly cold, in which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the US, nearly 700 000 adults have received itmore surprising. Although it is both He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a secular and decade. The return has come about because he's had a religious prejudice, Chuck Tingle, in letter from his new horrorex-wife, saying that she's ill and hasn'Camp Damascus't long to live. It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, peels back stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the skin boot of Christian ''pray the gay away'' camps a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to show the reader the horror lurking within.home?

|isbnauthor=1803136383Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Tin Soldiers|author=David ChadwickThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary= Wat Tyler has returned from fighting Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in Vietnam under something of the evening a cloudhelper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. What actually happened out Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is gossiped about and nobody is sure exactly what took placea generation missing in the family. A few short years ago, but an act of heroism leading Eli's parents were both lost to the titular race, a rare battlefield commission followed by rank cowardice and disgrace seems globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to be navigate the world in the consensuscompany of a magical beast. Wat himself 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 keeping his cards close to 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 chest, as he always doesgran. |isbn=0571382231

|isbn=B0C7J9D21B178763681X|title=A Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)Knife Skills for Beginners|author=A J LewisOrlando Murrin|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary=When we first meet our hero, his name is Ettore and he lives Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at The House of Beautiful Swallowsa residential cookery school in Belgravia. Idyllic as this might sound, itHe didn's t really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a bordello way of getting both men and Ettore's mother died when women to do what he was bornwanted. HePaul ''somehow'' got the impression that he's not been short of mothersd be at the school to assist Paul, who had a broken arm, though - but for someone of his background in late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, it's difficult to obtain decent employment. The stint working with the preparation of anchovies didn't work turn out that way. The teaching - and bastards the problems - are considered bad luck on fishing boatsall his own. Ettore was nothing if not resourceful - and determined - and it The one thing he hadn't expected was not long before he had a successful business as a guide for visitorssomeone to turn up dead. He Unfortunately, he was even saving some moneythe person who discovered the body and everyone knows that the police consider that person to be the prime suspect.

|author=Dean KoontzSarah Marsh|title=After DeathA Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5

|summary= Michael MaceAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Head Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of Securitysilence, at everything about her life changes. Living in a top secret biological research facilitytime when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is among 55 people who die when sent to a virus school where she is released in a bio-hazard accidenttaught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuaryFrom here, covered she ends up in plastic, he another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at been teaching the shrouded bodies of his dead friends deaf and former colleaguesusing a system called Visible Speech. As he recovers his sensesAt the same time, he realises that there Bell is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymoreworking on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|isbn=16625004671035401614}}

|authorisbn=Jamie Littler1803816759|title=ArkspireThe Unravelling|author=Will Gibson

|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=Two sisters, Juniper It's 2038 and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk Joe is a bored cop policing the wealthy and cheesepeaceful New York City. Juniper is an eager hunter Joe longs for a bit of adventure and trader in illicit magic, including relics from prior major wars left out in the Badlandsto get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. Elodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of But then something goes horribly wrong with the religious districts of ArkspireAI system that now runs everything, making life easier for many, perhaps even and riots start to become the child in line spread. Finally, Joe gets to inherit do some real policing. In the power aftermath of the Watcher, rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and Joe is assigned to bring her home. Joe isn't the closest only one trying to save Suki - Dylan, a ruler the district hasBritish superfan and tech nerd, and one of is also on the five major victors in said earlier warcase. Being trained in What went wrong? Did 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, system fail or for very, very bad…|isbn=0241586143was it hacked? And how is Suki's kidnapping connected?

|authorisbn=Thiago de Moraes1529421284|title=Old Gods New TricksLaying Out the Bones|author=Kate Webb

|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Meet TrixieIt was one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in a heatwave. Forever getting into scrapesIn a gully, larks a human skeleton came to the surface and adventures involving flooding forensic testing proved the school aircon with fart powderbody to be Lee Geary, she could almost be thought a young goddess of nuisancewho had disappeared nine years earlier. But just when sheHe's being told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacherd been a known drug user and had learning disabilities, the world changes. Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – so it could have been a power-out, even simple case of electric cars, hits not just the town the school's in misadventure but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, and all that powers the Internet, just for our convenienceDI Matt Lockyer wasn's sake)t convinced. TrixieGeary was a townie, luckily, realises so what has happened – was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? There are connections to the ancient Gods have taken suicide of Holly Gilbert and to two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the power of power from ustime. And so she begins her epic quest, to gather all Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad of the people Major Crimes Review Unit (that can steal it back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the Gods, ie the semi-deities, giants, half-gods 's cold cases to you and so on known as the trickstersme) investigate.|isbn=178845295X

|authorisbn=Alexia Casale0571379559|title=Sing if you Can't DanceThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams

|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|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 thatThe House of Broken Bricks''s what Ven is dealing with after collapsing on stage in the middle story of a dance performance that was going to change her lifefour people. But Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she comes back fightingmight be happier there, desperate to avoid but instead, she lives in the house on the pity staresriverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, and desperate to get back to a life thatit's as normal as she can possibly managestood the passage of time, storms and floods. Meanwhile there's a new (cute!) boy in schoolHer husband, Richard, her music A Level performance piece struggles to try grow his vegetables, to sort out, and just complete the daydelivery rounds -and tobring in sufficient money. They have twin boys -day traumas of all Sonny and Max, the challenges her body continues to throw at her to navigaterainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. So even though she canPeople don't dance anymorebelieve that they're related, might much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she be able to sing her way through instead?|isbn=0571373801's his nanny.

|authorisbn=Helen Peters1529425867|title=Friends Lost and TraitorsNever Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Simon Mason|rating=34.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=EnglandIn Oxford, WW2there are two D I Wilkins. Two young girls are new at the country pile called StanbrookRaymond Wilkins is of Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and always exquisitely dressed. One is NancyD I Ryan Wilkins, destined to be in service all her life it seemsson of Ryan and father of Ryan, like the female generations before heris not. He's not any of those things. The other is SidneyHe's white, a girl originated from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from bomber flight-pathstrailer 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. The girls are chalk and cheese, and You might wonder if we hadnyou't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it sore being introduced to a police procedural written for laughs. But something is amissWell, and first separately and then in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be a rum you'unre not. Midnight deliveries The two men are received under cover just different sides of secrecy, talk is made of meetings with Germans, and not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been attackedthe same policing coin. But surely Sometimes the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhand?|isbn=1788004647combination works brilliantly well. Sometimes it's problematic.

|isbnauthor=0241996104Mosby Woods|title=Coming to Find You|author=Jane CorryA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=NancyThe West isn's mother and step-father were brutally stabbed at their Sussex farmhouse and her step-brother, Martin, has been convicted 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 best course of their murderaction. We first meet Nancy outside the courtGovernments are flailing. A war here, after Martin receives a life sentencepush for climate action there. The barrister tells her A feeling that she's received nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a 'silent sentence' - she's not been found guilty of anything but will have to live man with precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what happened for the rest will happen given any set of her lifecircumstances. Of courseThat man would be valuable, it's made worse because Nancy's rich - she inherited five million pounds from her mother - and the papers are making right? Perhaps the most of itvaluable asset in history. ''Farmhouse slaughter daughter'' is one favourite epithet and ''rich bitch'' might not be printed but is undoubtedly spokenImagine then, that this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1