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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Helen Cooper0241636604|title=The Taming Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the CatEast End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on 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 only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was 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's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Once again, mice are pitched against catIt's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. In this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case youShe're seeing s back now because of a connectionrequest for help from her beloved aunt, they live in a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the names of cheesesCarole. AnywayFreya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, Brie is shunned, scorned dead andthe circumstances seem suspicious, if you must, mous-tracised, for the way his habits don't match to say the other mice he lives withleast. They nibble up paper wrapping from Arthur was the cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on reason why Freya had not been back to the visuals on it. And that story-telling will come in handy one nightvillage: Arthur, when he she feels all alone and cast out, let her down badly. It's almost Even though they were in business together as if there were another character from fable who had had antique hunters, she has not felt able to tell stories to keep themselves alivebe near the man or pursue the profession she loved. This makes Brie After the top dog split, she worked in the mouse communitya cafe, though, as all met and married James (on the others had rebound from the chance to half-inch some cheese while the cat love of her life, who was distractedmurdered) and Freya and James have now divorced. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|isbn=0571376010
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|isbn=B0CDZRGT1MAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Super Short StoriesAll Tomorrow's Futures: Flash FictionFictions that Disrupt|author=Mark C WallfischBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesScience Fiction|summary=''Got a minute Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to be amused, entertained, or challenged?''''These 100 stories are super short. None is more than 300 words. You can read one in a flash.''''Some are funny. Some are poignant. All are shortcome.''
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|isbnauthor=1732898766Sunny Singh|title=The Adventures of Birpus and Bulbus: Book One: The Sour Milk Dragon|author=Wynn Everett-Albanese, Michael Albanese and Indre Ta (Illustrator)Hotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=For SharingThrillers |summary=When we first meet Birpus and Bulbus they're running for their lives The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in the Forest of Fine Reputean unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Their greatest fear has come about: Hiding from the Sour Milk Dragon is chasing them. He's right behind themterrorists who are rampaging through, spewing hotkilling everyone on site, sour milk from his nostrils. (Please don't try this at home: it won't end well.) Fortunatelythere is Sam, they were nearly at Nobby Lob-lolly - and when a ladder of moss wartime photographer and vines was lowered for themAbhi, they escapedthe hotel manager. They climbed up As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the Tree Wee homes high up residents who are still alive in the tangled woods where hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. Although they lived with only ever talk over the phone, their Grand Wees, Nester Nook friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and Granny Crannythey both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=086154742X
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|isbn=14722639361529153298|title=The FigurineList of Suspicious Things|author=Victoria HislopJennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly... ) She was alone: her mother's not what's worrying Miv's family, Greek by birththough. Women have been disappearing. Well, had left the family home and refused to returnthey've been murdered, but Mary and Hamish (Helenato have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's parents) felt overheard that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip father wants to move the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits'Down South'. She grew to love her grandmother and the familyWhen you's maidre from Yorkshire, DinaDown South is a frightening, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfatherforeign place, retired general Stamatis Papagiannisbest avoided. He was proud of his close connections to For Miv, the Junta move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and expected his family she'll do anything to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate themprevent that. His prejudices included HelenaShe's red hair and green eyes - inherited from not worried about the dangers or that her fatherMum's Scottish ancestorsstopped talking - to anyone.
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|authorisbn=Cody Goodfellow1398524085|title=VerticalHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=3.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= ThereCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's something about tall buildings that just captures my imaginationfiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Who doesn't love a good view from up high Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, after Etty. are all? Even worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the drabbest office building is somewhere Ibody of Greg'm intrigued s father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was an easy assumption for the police to get inside if itmake that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's 40 stories tall. So when I picked up this book – little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about people who scale tall buildings for fun – I was instantly intriguedwhat really happened.|isbn= 1803363991
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold1035906708|title=Finding BearDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]]We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, April had been on Bear Islandbut she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, a lot further north than many people would ventureNew York, in December 1923 and finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that only moved to Athens when she called Bearwas thirteen. Back home, things on the domestic and family front are a bit advanced, Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but not perfect for her, and so can easily be ignored when word comes through from father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the islands Bear was last left onStates. For a bear doing very BearWhen she was back in Athens -y things has been shot and wounded. Desperate to make sure he's OK, supposedly so that she and could get appropriate training for her father return to voice - she was raised under the Arctic Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and hope that in a world made no secret of very white and very dangerous thingsher preference for her elder sister, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the friendship can continueJackie.|isbn=0008582017
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|isbnauthor=1804183210Christopher Edge|title=No Reserve|author=Felix FrancisBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=Thirty-four-year-old Theo Jennings shouldn't have been on the rostrum when the colt - as yet unnamed - came up Lucas and his friends are all booked in for auction, but Peter Radwaya movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the chairmannickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, hadnthey't arrivedre looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, so he continued his session. many snacks! To say However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that he was shocked when the bidding reached three million pounds would be something about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an understatement. A lovely animal - but three million pounds? Two men had been bidding against each other. Brian Kitman and Elliot adventure they couldn'Mitch' Mitchell were well-known and respected in the racing industryt even imagine. Jennings was in But as they lurch from one of film genre to the cubicles in the toilets when the two men came in and their conversation revealed that the horse had been deliberately bid up to that next, can they figure. out what on earth is going on? Both were happy that Will they had insurance in place. The following morningever get back to the cinema, the horse was dead in its stall.and to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738
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{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah WilsonRachel Greenlaw|title=This One Wild Compass and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured worldBlade
|rating=3.5
|genre= LifestyleTeens|summary= My favourite Mary Oliver line is the one in which she asks ''What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?'' I get to love that line so much because can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my answer is ''This! Precisely thisheart.'' I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and precious life plundering the way I want towrecks. Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. In Mira, like her book that takes Oliver's words as mother before her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges , is one of the source) she pushes us seven who swim out to think about whether we really ''are'' living survey the life we want ruins – the best life rescuing any survivors and any treasure that we could be livinglies within. Her answer is an unequivocal ''noBut when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, we are notthey capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Don't care what you're doingDesperate 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 guide her, she thinks you (wesets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, I) could be doing more…And sheas her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's effing furious about territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the fact that we are notfuture of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=17856338480008664730
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|isbnauthor=1839948493James Sherwood Metts|title=A World of Dogs|author=Carlie Sorosiak and Luisa UribePlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers|summary=In the interests of full disclosure, I must tell you that I'm Things have been a sucker bit sticky for dogsthe Earthlings. In nearly eight decades, I've never met one I didn't trust AI and I've loved most of them. I wish I felt the same about human beings. So, any book about dogsautomation have been proceeding apace, Ioften replacing jobs they'm going re paid to sit down do and devourother tasks that took time to accomplish. Then I'm going Just as they were beginning to get used to go back all this technological change and read it properlystarting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. And so it Life was pretty much shut down and, along with ''A World of Dogs''it, with ninety-six pages devoted entirely to my four-legged friends. Author Carlie Sorosiak found herself all the accidental owner of an American Dingo - she's learned quite a lot about dogs since thenmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426
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|isbnauthor=1405951680Matthew Tree|title=The Safe House|author=Cameron WardWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Jess Walker accepted an offer (OK, actually she was gently nudged into it by her friendTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, Rupert) to caretake a luxury property in the Australian outback for a couple drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of months. After the problems she'd had being exceptional at work, it seemed like just the break she needed. She was no longer a data analyst for the Metropolitan police in London: she was Jess who was returning to the country any of her birth his artistic passions all failed miserably and in need who had endless crises of the space self confidence. So Tim applied himself to get over the traumatic end of her relationship with Charles. A few weeks in the Otway Ranges in Victoria sounded like just the tickethis studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
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|author=Rachel HarrisonA G Slatter|title=Bad Dolls|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=It's been some time since I've read any horror. I had a couple of misspent teen years reading Stephen King, borrowing the books from a boy I fancied at school and scaring myself half silly with them to the point that I couldn't shut my bedroom curtains at night for fear The Briar Book of the vampires outside! Don't worry - this short story collection isn't like that! It doesn't have those jump scares, and I didn't have to read it during daylight hours only! But it is creepy, and I found most of that feeling came from the fact that these are stories about women, living normal lives, and that at least in part, the horrors arises from very normal situations such as a breakup, trying a new dieting app, going to a hen party and a coping with grief.|isbn=1803363932}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1394159544|title=Recycling for Dummies|author=Sarah WinklerDead
|rating=5
|genre=LifestyleFantasy|summary=''Recycling one ton There's a part of plastic me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can save up to 16.3 barrels This secret magic of oilmy own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.''
Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar''Recycling one ton s, a family of paper can save 17 trees witches who protect the town and the wider world from being cut downthe Darklands.'' If you send an apple core Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to landfill, it will take between 6 months be born into her family for generations and 2 years to decompose. A glass bottle will take up to 1 million years. As a just-post-WWII babyas such since she was young, I faced her training as a dilemma: reducing, reusing steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and recycling is part of my DNApotions. NEVER throw away anything that might When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie''possibly'' come in handy now or in s cousin Audra becomes the future. NEVER buy anything if you can cobble together something that would serve Briar Witch, the purposetown's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. Almost everything can be used one more time As challenges come her way left, right and any purchase must pass centre, Ellie uncovers the test of 'Is this absolutely essential?' On rare ability to communicate with the other handdead, I suspected I was guilty of wishcycling: assuming that something must be recyclable (toothpaste tubes - I'm looking putting her at you) and dropping it in the kerbside binheart of a maelstrom of chaos. YesReeling from one family secret to another, I could go searching on the internet - Ellie must decide who to trust and get conflicting advice - but determine what I needed was a recycling bibleto do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.s|isbn=1803364548
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|authorisbn=Lauren St John1529900360|title=Finding WonderThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=RooIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's life has become almost impossibly 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 difficultcases. Her mum died when she was young, His assertions that there were only open-and now she finds herself awoken in -shut cases which didn't need the middle help of the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his way to the corner shop to buy a lottery ticketpsychologist only worked for a while. When asked what other family she hasFinally, she can only name her auntit was Robin, JoniDelaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man she knows her dad didn't think very highly loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool ofa remote property in Bel Air. But she has no one else, He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and so off she goes is married to live with her unreliable auntan extremely rich man and it's not the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. Things continue His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to get worse for Roofollow in his footsteps, as particularly when she and Joni leave London in Jonihe considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's old campervan, it breaks down in life. When he was seventeen he took the middle opportunity of nowhere doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and then bursts into flames! was convinced this was the job for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. Poor Roo!|isbn=0571376169If anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=14483097430861541774|title=The Devil Stone (DCI Christine Caplan)A Nye of Pheasants|author=Caro RamsaySteve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=In the village of Cronchie on the West coast of ScotlandDCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, five members of has taken a wealthy family are found murderedshort holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. The only item missing from the home is the Devil Stone: myth says Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that if the stone is removed from Otterburn House, death will followhe was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. The only suspects are known Satanists Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but in many ways, evidence came to light that's an easy conclusion given suggested that two of them 'discovered' he might have planned to murder the bodyman. The Senior Investigating Office is DCI Bob Oswald but when Now he disappears, DCI Christine Caplan is pulled in could be facing the death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn'shadow' himt help Danny at all.
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{{Frontpage
|author= Kay ChronisterAlexander McCall Smith|title= Desert CreaturesThe Perfect Passion Company|rating= 4.5|genre= Dystopian General Fiction|summary= With The Perfect Passion Company is a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanitydating agency in Edinburgh, post-apocalyptic fiction can become run by Ness and operating as an almost masochistic thrillalternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Whether it Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a robotic takeover, trip to Canada to get away for a world devoid while. Katie is coming out of water or a nuclear holocaustbreak up with a bad boyfriend, this genre is a way for humans and so jumps at the chance to come home to cathartically experience their most existential fearsEdinburgh. ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a And so begins this new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the fears that exist for humanity todayIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. It is Katie has no experience in running a shocking novel that still manages business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to find hope.lend a hand…|isbn=18033649981846976596
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|authorisbn=Christopher Fowler0811771741|title=Word MonkeyInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=54|genre=AutobiographyCrafts|summary= ItMelissa Leapman's the first ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of August in the middle of a cool wet summer in East Angliaknits from toys to blankets. I decided not to swim at Some will be quick knits - others are of the pool 'long, cosy afternoons in favour front of going to my beach hutthe fire' variety. The weather closed inprojects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, rain arrived, and I decided not five to do that either. When I finished reading this bookten hours, I realised it was because (a) I wanted ten to finish reading this book twenty hours and (b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shackmore than twenty hours. No spoiler alertsAll the projects are attractive, the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was' – modern and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosisuseable. There is something very strange I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being made to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, and you know he actually is at that point, because he doespicky. He did.|isbn=0857529625
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|isbnauthor=1529077699Dean Koontz|title=The Raging Storm (Two Rivers)|author=Ann CleevesBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeParanormal|summary=''It's all bloody peculiar, isn't it, Sir?'' Well yes, it Benny ishaving a terrifically bad day. Jem Rosco blew into the local pub one evening in the middle of an autumn galeHe loses his job, he loses his fiancee, stayed for about a month and then turned uphis house gets trashed. Oh, naked and dead, in someone has delivered a small boatreally weird, anchored in Scully Cove close disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the village of Greystonething that has trashed his house! The thing is, in DevonBenny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. Rosco had He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the status of delivery to his house is a national treasure: new friend, a renowned adventurerbad weather friend called Spike, round the world sailor and all round ''celebrity''who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. I Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny''nearly'' said 'all-round good egg' but as we'll find outs enemies, if he could be more than , Benny, and Harper (a little bit close with money and his background isnwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny't s wild adventure) can figure out who exactly an open bookthey are. Where did he get the money for his first boat? How did he finance the trip?|isbn=1662500491
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|isbnauthor=B0CC9W7GLRAdam Stower|title=On the Beach: The Winter Visitor|author=Chris Green Murray and Jenny FiondaBun|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingConfident Readers |summary=Kit and Teal were just beginning to wonder whether it was better Murray is supposed to be at homea humble, bored but warmtidy and friendly cat, or frozen cold one who is able to sleep and building sand sculptures on a snowy beach when a large slab eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of silvery ice drifted onto the shorelinetwo. On top of the ice was But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a polar bear. As hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the ice bumped onto catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the sandregular back garden, the bear woke but into a world of frightening adventure and with wobbly legs moved from the icewhiffs. Kit was all for making This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a run for ittroll hunter is expected – well, but Teal knew that the bear one much bigger than Murray was hungry and gave him one apple and then another. He obviously needed , to be taken home on the bus and given a good meal honest, but he's turned up and somewhere he'll have to sleep. What else would you do?do…|isbn=0008561249
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|authorisbn=Claire NorthB0C47LV1PC|title=House of OdysseusFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=54|genre= Literary Fiction |summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person''What joke? And if you could matter more than love, 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.
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|isbn=15294270451529431735|title=The Girl in the Eagle's TalonsWinter Visitor|author=Karin SmirnoffJames Henry|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins'Life has return all the more to offer than people - prime numbers for examplesurprising. He''. Lisbeth Salander has headed north to d been exiled on the small town of Gasskas, where the so-far-untapped natural resources of the area have sparked Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a gold rushdecade. The criminal underworld return has not been slow in coming forward. Salandercome about because he's niecehad a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's mother is the latest woman in the area ill and hasn't long to have vanished without tracelive. It was only with reluctance that Salander became her niece's guardian but it quickly becomes obvious that Svala hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a remarkably gifted teenager who's unaware watery grave in the boot of the part Salander played in her father's deatha stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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|isbnauthor=B0CCCPJJ5BAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Last Person in the World|author=Matthew TreeGlorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=Our narrator was Eli is a scholarship busy lad – by day boy an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a helper at the London-based public school where he met Ralph Finnsdessert cafe his gran owns and runs. It was an unusual relationship as Ralph was Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a boarder and had money generation missing in the family. A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to throw around on a Rolex watchthe titular race, vintage wines and a stateglobe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of-the-art sound system. Both were probably quite surprised when they became almost friends and certainly more than acquaintancesa magical beast. Finns had no intention of going on This has made the race anathema to University, unlike our storyteller who had the pair – but when a place bad incident at Wolverton College in Wellingfordthe eatery leads to a confession from gran, the UK's third Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most prestigious university. Before going uphates, he took up a loose invitation with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to visit Ralph at possibly save his home, Clouds Manor in West Dorsetgran.|isbn=0571382231
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|authorisbn=Dean Koontz178763681X|title=The House at the End of the WorldKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Orlando Murrin
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersCrime|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 Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. He didn't really want to your own private fortress on an island that sits snugly in but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a small chain way of tiny dots on the map getting both men and live out your days in peace and solitudewomen to do what he wanted. ThatPaul ''somehow's what Katie thought she was doing when she shut down her old life ' got the impression that he'd be at the school to start afresh on Jacobassist Paul, who had a broken arm, but it didn's Ladder; t turn out that way. The teaching - and the problems - are all would have been the aforementioned peace and solitude were it not his own. The one thing he hadn't expected was for someone to turn up dead. Unfortunately, he was the pesky US Government occupying Ringrock, person who discovered the neighbouring island body and perpetrating all manner of mischief in everyone knows that the name of science and quite possibly bringing about police consider that person to be the end of all mankindprime suspect.|isbn=1662453159
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|author=T KingfisherSarah Marsh|title=ThornhedgeA Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5|genre=FantasyGeneral Fiction|summary=''You had a right to retake your place.'' T Kingfisher's latest novella is After a lovely reimagining bout of scarlet fever as a fairytale that is well known and well belovedchild, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. But whilst there is Suddenly plunged into a princess trapped in a tower, sleeping under an eternal enchantmentworld of silence, Thornhedge is not everything about her storylife changes. Instead Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, our protagonist Ellen is Toadling, who was stolen away by fairies when she was sent to a new-born baby and secreted away to the land of fairie school where her childhood was spent being she is taught how to draw magic lip read, but physically restrained from her veins signing. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and cast spellsEllen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|isbn=18033642381035401614
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|isbn= B0CCCVRSGX1803816759|title=Stories 2The Unravelling|author=Richard F WalkerWill Gibson
|rating=4
|genre=Short StoriesScience Fiction|summary= This is Richard F WalkerIt's second volume 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the wealthy and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a bit of short storiesadventure and to get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. There are thirteen in all But then something goes horribly wrong with the AI system that now runs everything, making life easier for many, and I took something from each riots start to spread. Finally, Joe gets to do some real policing. In the aftermath of themthe rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and Joe is assigned to bring her home. There Joe isn't a single the only one that doesn't deserve trying to be among save Suki - Dylan, a British superfan and tech nerd, is also on the others case. What went wrong? Did the system fail or brings down the overall quality. It can be tricky to review short stories without giving too much away, so Iwas it hacked? And how is Suki'll just pick two to talk about and I think they give a general flavour.s kidnapping connected?
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17876366071529421284|title=The TrapLaying Out the Bones|author=Catherine Ryan HowardKate Webb
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's a scene replicated all too was one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in the early hours of the morninga heatwave. Drunken revellers spilling out of clubs and looking for In a gully, a way human skeleton came to get home. Some are lucky the surface and manage forensic testing proved the body to get one of the few taxis available. Others squash onto the night bus that will only go as far as one of the outlying villagesbe Lee Geary, who had disappeared nine years earlier. The woman all regret the 'taxi problemHe'd been a known drug user and had learning disabilities, particularly in the light so it could have been a simple case of misadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn'the missing women't convinced. For one young womanGeary was a townie, the final stop so what was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? There are connections to the bus leaves her a long way short suicide of her home. She had intended to ring someone to come Holly Gilbert and collect her - but her phone's dead. The bus had driven off before she had the chance to beg two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the bus driver to let her use histime. ThereLockyer and DC Gemma Broad of the Major Crimes Review Unit (that's no option but cold cases to start walking - unsuitably clothed you and in high-heeled shoesme) investigate.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=14059571740571379559|title=A Death at the PartyThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Amy StuartFiona Williams|rating=45|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=From ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the first pageriverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, we know that Nadine Walshit's party will not end wellstood the passage of time, storms and floods. The victim Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - a man and to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - is dying when we first meet him Sonny and Nadine consciously makes no effort to call Max, the ambulance he so desperately needsrainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. What we People don't know believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is who the man is or why Nadine prefers to have him die. I'd better give you a little more background so out with his mother that you can understand whatshe's happeninghis nanny.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Tania Unsworth1529425867|title=Nowhere Island|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Meet Gil. Just twelve, he is so determined to escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – Lost and find a home for himself. 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 to be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in a camp on an island between the two directions of a motorway, 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…|isbn=1804540080}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008530025|title=Murder in the FamilyNever Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Cara HunterSimon Mason
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was in December 2003 that fifteen-year-old Maura Howard came home and found the body In Oxford, there are two D I Wilkins. Raymond Wilkins is of her stepfatherNigerian descent, Luke RyderBalliol educated and always exquisitely dressed. D I Ryan Wilkins, in the garden son of Ryan and father of their West London homeRyan, is not. He had an injury on the back 's not any of his head which could have happened if he'd slipped down the steps but the vicious beating his face had taken was obviously deliberatethose things. Twenty years laterHe's white, originated from a trailer park, no one has been charged with his murder and itbarely educated (reading's now the subject of not ''really'Infamous'his thing) and his wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackies. They', a true-crime showre usually in lime green or acid yellow. A group of experts has been brought together You might wonder if you're being introduced to review the evidence and to take the investigation furthera police procedural written for laughs. More to the pointWell, theyyou're going to do this live on camera, episode by episodenot. There's no dump The two men are just different sides of the whole box set - and no shortage of cliffhangerssame policing coin. Sometimes the combination works brilliantly well. ItSometimes it's compelling viewingproblematic.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Judith EagleMosby Woods|title=The Stolen SongbirdA Whirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=CaroThe West isn's mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missingt the dominant force it once was. Her other mother, Ronnie, Nobody in the West is having quite sure how to go up North to take care mend this or even if mending it is the best course of her sister who is unwellaction. So who is going to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, she feels frustrated and confused and worried. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics Governments are brought to a halt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, along with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there tooflailing. But she soon finds herself caught up in a mysteryA war here, as she discovers a painting of a bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcase, and all across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising peoplepush for climate action there. 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=0571363148}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529195977|title=None of this A feeling that nobody is True|author=Lisa Jewell|rating=5|genre=Thrillers|summary=On her 45th birthday, Alix Summer celebrated with a crowd of friends in the Landsdown pub on Salisbury Road when she encountered Josie Fairactual charge. She, tooImagine then, there was out celebrating her 45th birthday, only she was just a man with her husband, Walterprecognition. It turns out that not only are Alix and Josie birthday twins, they were both born in St Mary's hospital. That's where Imagine the similarities end, though: Alix, with her husband, Nathan, are strategic advantage in the midst of this asset; a joyful, monied group man who can tell you what will happen given any set of friends and whilst they're not ''exactly'' rowdy, they're enjoying themselvescircumstances. JosieThat man would be valuable, on right? Perhaps the other handmost valuable asset in history. Imagine then, holds her handbag close to her tummy and you get the sense that Walter's not too happythis man loses this ability. He's not used What would governments do to spending this much money on a meal - but get it is Josie's birthday after all.back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1
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