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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
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|isbn=16358662430241636604|title=The Knitting Pattern Writing HandbookTrading Game: A Confession|author=Kristina McGrath and Sarah Walworth Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=CraftsAutobiography|summary=''I quickly discovered that putting words and numbers on If you were to bring up an image of a page wasncity banker in your mind, you't enoughre unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. Creating a pattern that was correct, clear, concise, A hoodie and consistent required a great deal of trial jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and errorhis background is the East End, patiencewhere he was familiar with violence, poverty and perseverance.'' (Introduction byFrancoise Danoy) A friend recently showed me a knitting pattern for which she'd paid good moneyinjustice. The first line There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of the instructions began: ''Cast off 100 stitches..Economics.'' It was clear that no good could come of this Stevenson is bright - the instructions didn't get any better extremely bright - and (finally) PayPal obliged he has a facility with a refund when the seller refused as she couldn't afford the repaymentnumbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. The pattern looked prettyIt was his ability at what was, but the creator didn't have the basic knowledge and skills to enable her to connect essentially, a card game which got him an internship with her knittersCitibank. She should have read ''The Knitting Pattern Writing Handbook''Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.
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|authorisbn=Adam Baron and Benji Davies1035021803|title=OscarThe Antique Hunter's LionGuide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=3.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to have his mother – or father, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a couple of times before he has to be ready request for schoolhelp from her beloved aunt, Carole. But when he enters his parentsFreya' bedrooms former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their beddead and the circumstances seem suspicious, looking sheepish, and admitting that he won't be hungry for another two daysto say the least. But there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other monthvillage: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. And it can shapeshiftEven though they were in business together as antique hunters, so he can take it she has not felt able to school and it can get him out of a problembe near the man or pursue the profession she loved. And it's wonderful to have around After the house – not limiting his biscuit intakesplit, being much more lax about the rulesshe worked in a cafe, met and so married James (on. OKthe rebound from the love of her life, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful timewho was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.|isbn=0008596751
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|isbn=B0BC3YTCMRAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Good Girls DieAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Ayura AyiraBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=General Science Fiction|summary=''This story is not for everyoneOpening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''
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|author=V CastroSunny Singh|title=The Haunting of AlejandraHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=HorrorThrillers |summary=''This was The Hotel Arcadia is a part of her past luxury hotel in an unnamed city that had to stop with herhas suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. She would be Hiding from the one to confront this.'' At some point during her lifeterrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, Alejandra lost herselfthe hotel manager. She feels as if she is playing parts As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for others the residents who are still alive in her life – her husband the hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her children – without ever giving any thought room to try to capture what's happened through her own desires, her own future, her own identityphotography. Day by day she goes through quotient motions without anyone seeing that there is something fundamentally wrong. For invisible to all but Alejandra Although they only ever talk over the phone, there is a darkness threatening their friendship grows as Abhi tries to consume help her. More keep safe and more she is visited they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by a ghost, a weeping woman in a fraying white gown dripping with water, who leaves distress in her wakethe terrorists.|isbn=1803365617086154742X
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|authorisbn=Richard Kadrey1529153298|title=The Pale House DevilList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45|genre=HorrorGeneral Fiction|summary=Ford It's 1979 and Neuland are a couple ofMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, well, guys for hire I guesshonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though really the way I thought of them through the book was as a couple of strange detectives! . Women have been disappearing. One of them is livingWell, you seethey've been murdered, and the other is undead, and but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so one of them kills the living, and the other kills the undeadfrightening. (Only not each other, obviously)Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. TheyWhen you're on from Yorkshire, Down South is a job in New York that goes badlyfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, and so they head out to the West coast to try to lay low for a while move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and find some other work she'll do anything to keep them goingprevent that. But when a young woman called Tilda hires them to kill She's not worried about the 'something' dangers or that appears to be haunting a wealthy gentlemanher Mum's house they find themselves uncovering a whole lot of family history, and a terrifyingly powerful creature that they've never come across before!|isbn=1803363894stopped talking - to anyone.
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|authorisbn=Helen Cooper1398524085|title=The Taming of the CatHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=3.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Once again, mice are pitched against catCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. In this caseHer children, principallysons Niall, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – Paul and Ollie and in case you're seeing a connectionher daughter, they live in a cheese shop and therefore Etty. are all the names used here seem to be the names of cheesesworried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Anyway, Brie is shunnedShortly afterwards, scorned Etty andGreg, if you mustfind the body of Greg's father, mous-tracisedDuncan Ackerley, for the way his habits don't match in the other mice he lives withriver. They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese It was an easy assumption for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the visuals on it. And police to make that story-telling will come in handy one night, Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he feels all alone and cast outcouldn't stand the guilt. ItThe Salter children are not convinced but there's almost as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to keep themselves alive. This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, though, as all the others had the chance to half-inch some cheese while the cat was distractedlittle else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|isbn=0571376010
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|isbn=B0CDZRGT1M1035906708|title=Super Short Stories: Flash FictionDiva|author=Mark C WallfischDaisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short StoriesGeneral Fiction|summary=''Got a minute We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to be amusedGreek parents in Manhattan, entertainedNew York, or challenged?''''These 100 stories are super short. None is more than 300 words. You can read one in a flashDecember 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas'''Some are funny. Some are poignant. All are short.'' Question: how do you review flash fiction? How do you give a flavour of a fully rounded little story if that story is told to make it more manageable in fewer than three hundred words? Or do you try to draw out themes from all the flash fictions States. When she was back in a book of them? I don't know! Perhaps we Athens - supposedly so that she could start get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by explaining that there really isn't a fixed definition mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of flash fiction but that her preference for this collectionher elder sister, author Mark C Wallfisch has gone for a three hundred word limit. That's about a single page in your average paperbackJackie.
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|isbnauthor=1732898766Christopher Edge|title=The Adventures of Birpus and Bulbus: Book One: The Sour Milk Dragon|author=Wynn Everett-Albanese, Michael Albanese and Indre Ta (Illustrator)Black Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=When we first meet Birpus Lucas and Bulbus they're running his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their lives in local cinema, a place that has the Forest nickname of Fine Repute'The Black Hole'. Their greatest fear has come about: the Sour Milk Dragon is chasing them. HeAll big movie fans, they's right behind themre looking forward to lots of exciting films, spewing hotand many, sour milk from his nostrils. many snacks! (Please don't try However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this at home: it wonnew film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't end welleven imagine.) Fortunately, But as they were nearly at Nobby Lob-lolly - and when a ladder of moss and vines was lowered for themlurch from one film genre to the next, can they escaped. figure out what on earth is going on? They climbed up Will they ever get back to the Tree Wee homes high up in the tangled woods where they lived with their Grand Weescinema, Nester Nook and Granny Cranny.to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738
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|isbnauthor=1472263936Rachel Greenlaw|title=The Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home Compass and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.}}{{Frontpage|author=Cody Goodfellow|title=VerticalBlade
|rating=3.5
|genre=ThrillersTeens|summary= There's something about tall buildings that just captures 'I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my imaginationheart. Who doesn't love ' Rosevear, a good view from up highremote and partially forgotten island, after all? Even survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the drabbest office building wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is somewhere Ione of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island'm intrigued to get inside if its leader and Mira's 40 stories tallfather. So when I picked up this book – about people Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who scale tall buildings for fun – I was instantly intriguedis as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets 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, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn= 18033639910008664730
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|author=Hannah Gold and Levi PinfoldJames Sherwood Metts|title=Finding BearPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had Things have been on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people would venture, and finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called Bear. Back home, things on the domestic and family front are a bit advanced, but not perfect sticky for her, and so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last left onEarthlings. For a bear doing very Bear-y things has AI and automation have been shot proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and woundedother tasks that took time to accomplish. Desperate Just as they were beginning to make sure he's OK, she get used to all this technological change and her father return starting to the Arctic and hope that in a world think of very white other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and very dangerous things, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that along with it, all the friendship can continuemany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=00085820171736128426
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|isbnauthor=1804183210Matthew Tree|title=No Reserve|author=Felix FrancisWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Thirty-four-year-old Theo Jennings shouldn't have been on the rostrum when the colt - as yet unnamed - came up for auctionTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, but Peter Radway, the chairman, hadn't arrived, so he continued his session. To say that he was shocked when the bidding reached three million pounds would be an understatement. A lovely animal - but three million pounds? Two men had been bidding against each other. Brian Kitman a drunk and Elliot 'Mitch' Mitchell were well-known and respected in the racing industry. Jennings was in one chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of the cubicles in the toilets when the two men came in his artistic passions all failed miserably and their conversation revealed that the horse who had been deliberately bid up endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to that figure. Both were happy that they had insurance in place. The following morninghis studies, the horse was dead in its stall.}}{{Frontpage|author=Sarah Wilson|title=This One Wild cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured world|rating=3.5|genre= Lifestyle|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 my answer is ''This! Precisely this.'' I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild and precious life the way I want to. Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. In her book that takes Oliver's words as her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges the source) she pushes us to think about whether we really ''are'' living the life we want – the best life that we could be living. Her answer is an unequivocal ''no, we are not''. Don't care what you're doing, she thinks you (we, I) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about the fact that we are notset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn=1785633848B0CVFXPGP8
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|isbnauthor=1839948493A G Slatter|title=A World The Briar Book of Dogs|author=Carlie Sorosiak and Luisa Uribethe Dead
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-FictionFantasy|summary=In the interests '' There's a part of full disclosure, I must tell you me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I'm a sucker for dogscan. In nearly eight decadesThis secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. Ijust want to enjoy it for a while.'ve never met one I didn't trust and I Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar've loved most s, a family of themwitches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. I wish I felt Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the same about human beingsfirst non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. SoWhen her grandmother suddenly dies, any book about dogsEllie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, Ithe town'm going to sit down s leader, and devourEllie takes her place beside her. Then I'm going As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to go back and read it properly. And so it was communicate with ''A World the dead, putting her at the heart of a maelstrom of Dogs''chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, with ninety-six pages devoted entirely Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to my four-legged friends. Author Carlie Sorosiak found herself do as the accidental owner of an American Dingo - sheBriar witches's learned quite a lot about dogs since thenlegacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548
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|isbn=14059516801529900360|title=The Safe HouseGhost Orchid|author=Cameron WardJonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Jess Walker accepted an offer (OKIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, actually she Sturgis was gently nudged into it by her friend, Rupert) reluctant to caretake 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 luxury property in the Australian outback psychologist only worked for a couple of monthswhile. After the problems sheFinally, it was Robin, Delaware'd had at works partner, it seemed like just who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the break man she loved needed. She was no longer The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a data analyst for the Metropolitan police remote property in London: she Bel Air. He was Jess who was returning the heir to the country of her birth an Italian shoe empire and in need of the space she is married to get over an extremely rich man and it's not the traumatic end of her relationship with CharlesItalian. A few weeks in the Otway Ranges in Victoria sounded like just But which of them was the ticket.primary target?
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|authorisbn=Rachel Harrison1529395224|title=Bad DollsLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=Short StoriesAnimals and Wildlife|summary=It's been some time since I've read any horrorSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. I had a couple of misspent teen years reading Stephen King, borrowing the books from His father was a boy I fancied at school GP and scaring myself half silly with them Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the point strain that I couldnbeing on-call put on his father't shut my bedroom curtains at night for fear s life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the vampires outside! job for him. Don't worry - this short story collection isn't like that! Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It doesnhadn'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 with so many students - been his dream since he was a breakupchild. If anything, trying a new dieting app, going he'd wanted to be a hen party and a coping with griefprofessional footballer.|isbn=1803363932
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|isbn=13941595440861541774|title=Recycling for DummiesA Nye of Pheasants|author=Sarah WinklerSteve Burrows|rating=54|genre=LifestyleCrime|summary=DCI Domenic Jejeune''Recycling one ton of plastic can save s close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up to 16.3 barrels of oil.'' ''Recycling one ton of paper can save 17 trees from being cut down.'' If you send with an apple core to landfillold ally, it will take between 6 months and 2 years to decomposeGuy Trueman. A glass bottle will take up to 1 million years. As Maik was involved in a juststreet brawl -posthe would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife -WWII babyand he killed a Ghurka. Initially, I he faced a dilemma: reducing, reusing and recycling is part charge of my DNA. NEVER throw away anything manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might ''possibly'' come in handy now or in have planned to murder the futureman. NEVER buy anything if you can cobble together something that would serve Now he could be facing the purposedeath penalty. Almost everything Domenic Jejeune can be used one more time do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and any purchase must pass the test of wouldn'Is this absolutely essential?' On the other hand, I suspected I was guilty of wishcycling: assuming that something must be recyclable (toothpaste tubes - I'm looking t help Danny at you) and dropping it in the kerbside binall. Yes, I could go searching on the internet - and get conflicting advice - but what I needed was a recycling bible.s
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|author=Lauren St JohnAlexander McCall Smith|title=Finding WonderThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Roo's life has become almost impossibly difficultThe 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. Her mum died when Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she was young, could come and now she finds herself awoken in look after the middle business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his way chance to the corner shop come home to buy a lottery ticketEdinburgh. When asked what other family she hasAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, she can only name her auntbringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, Jonithanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who she knows her dad didn't think very highly ofquickly begin to charm. But she Katie has no one elseexperience in running a business, or in match-making, and so off she goes to live with but Ness has full confidence in her unreliable aunt. Things continue to get worse for Rooabilities, as when she and Joni leave London in Jonithere's old campervanalways her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, it breaks down in the middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!to lend a hand…|isbn=05713761691846976596
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|isbn=14483097430811771741|title=The Devil Stone (DCI Christine Caplan)InstaKnits for Baby|author=Caro RamsayMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeCrafts|summary=In the village Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of Cronchie on the West coast of Scotland'long, five members cosy afternoons in front of a wealthy family are found murderedthe fire' variety. The only item missing from projects are divided by the home is the Devil Stone: myth says that if the stone is removed from Otterburn Housetime they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, death will followten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. The only suspects All the projects are known Satanists but in many waysattractive, thatmodern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 's an easy conclusion given that two of them social-media-worthy projects'discovered' the body. The Senior Investigating Office is DCI Bob Oswald but when he disappears, DCI Christine Caplan is pulled in to that'shadow' hims me being picky.
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|author= Kay ChronisterDean Koontz|title= Desert CreaturesThe Bad Weather Friend|rating= 4.5|genre= Dystopian FictionParanormal|summary= With Benny is having a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanityterrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrilland his house gets trashed. Whether it is Oh, and someone has delivered a robotic takeoverreally weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, a world devoid of water and it's possible that whoever or a nuclear holocaustwhatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this genre bad luck. He is a way nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for humans Benny it turns out that the delivery to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister his house is a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for humanity todaybeing a good person. It Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a shocking novel that still manages to find hopewaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=18033649981662500491
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|author=Christopher FowlerAdam Stower|title=Word MonkeyMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyConfident Readers |summary= It's the first of August in the middle of Murray is supposed to be a cool wet summer in East Anglia. I decided not humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to swim at sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the pool in favour of going to my beach huttwo. The weather closed inBut he's a bad magician's cat, rain arrivedso his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and I decided the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not to do that either. When I finished reading this bookinto the regular back garden, I realised it was because (but into a) I wanted to finish reading this book world of frightening adventure and (b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shackwhiffs. No spoiler alertsThis time round it drops them into a Viking land, the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was' – and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis. There is something very strange about being made , to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that be honest, but he is dying, 's turned up and you know he actually is at that point, because he does. He did.'ll have to do…|isbn=08575296250008561249
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|isbn=1529077699B0C47LV1PC|title=The Raging Storm (Two Rivers)Fragility|author=Ann CleevesMosby Woods|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'It's all bloody peculiarjoke? And if you could, isn't is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, Sirwould it land?''The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.
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|isbn=B0CC9W7GLR1529431735|title=On the Beach: The Winter Visitor|author=Chris Green and Jenny FiondaJames Henry|rating=54|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Kit It's February 1991 and Teal were just beginning to wonder whether it was better to be at homeEssex is bitingly cold, bored but warm, or frozen cold and building sand sculptures on a snowy beach when a large slab of silvery ice drifted onto which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the shorelinemore surprising. On top of He'd been exiled on the ice was Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a polar beardecade. As the ice bumped onto the sandThe return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, the bear woke saying that she's ill and with wobbly legs moved from the icehasn't long to live. Kit was all for making a run for itIt's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, but Teal knew that the bear was hungry stripped to his underwear and gave him one apple and then another. He obviously needed sent to be taken home on a watery grave in the bus and given boot of a good meal and somewhere to sleepstolen Ford Sierra. What else would you doIs it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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|author=Claire NorthAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=House The Glorious Race of OdysseusMagical Beasts|rating=54|genre= Literary Fiction Confident Readers|summary= ''What could matter more than love?'' The follow-up to Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where wondrous library we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, start by visiting with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husbandhim, who sailed to war and in the evening a helper at Troy the dessert cafe his gran owns and then by divine intervention never returned homeruns. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the throne of the Western Islesfamily. Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca A few short years ago, Eli's shoresparents were both lost to the titular race, Queen Penelope is on a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the brink company of a fragile peacemagical beast. One that shatters however 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 to dare to enter what he most hates, with the return sole aim the prize of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his sister Elektra, seeking refugegran.|isbn=03565160750571382231
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|isbn=1529427045178763681X|title=The Girl in the Eagle's TalonsKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Karin SmirnoffOrlando Murrin|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. He didn't really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of getting both men and women to do what he wanted. Paul ''somehow'Life has more to offer than people - prime numbers for example'got the impression that he'. Lisbeth Salander has headed north d be at the school to the small town of Gasskasassist Paul, who had a broken arm, where but it didn't turn out that way. The teaching - and the so-farproblems -untapped natural resources of the area have sparked a gold rushare all his own. The criminal underworld has not been slow in coming forward. Salanderone thing he hadn's niece's mother is the latest woman in the area t expected was for someone to have vanished without traceturn up dead. It Unfortunately, he was only with reluctance the person who discovered the body and everyone knows that Salander became her niece's guardian but it quickly becomes obvious the police consider that Svala is a remarkably gifted teenager who's unaware of person to be the part Salander played in her father's deathprime suspect.
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|isbnauthor=B0CCCPJJ5BSarah Marsh|title=The Last Person in the World|author=Matthew TreeA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Our narrator was After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a scholarship day boy at the London-based public school where he met Ralph Finnsworld of silence, everything about her life changes. It Living in a time when the use of sign language was an unusual relationship seen as Ralph was something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a boarder and had money school where she is taught to throw around on a lip read, but physically restrained from signing. Rolex watchFrom here, vintage wines she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a state-of-the-art sound system. Both were probably quite surprised when they became almost friends and certainly more than acquaintancescalled Visible Speech. Finns had no intention of going At the same time, Bell is working on to Universityother inventions and ideas, unlike our storyteller who had a place at Wolverton College and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in Wellingford, the UK's third most prestigious university. Before going up, he took up a loose invitation to visit Ralph at his home, Clouds Manor in West Dorsetcomplicated tangle of espionage.|isbn=1035401614
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Dean Koontz1803816759|title=The House at the End of the WorldUnravelling|author=Will Gibson
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersScience Fiction|summary=When you experience overwhelming tragedy It's 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the wealthy and feel peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a bit of adventure and to get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. But then something goes horribly wrong with the AI system that there is no one on your sidenow runs everything, you can either suck it upmaking life easier for many, saddle up and ride on or you can retreat riots start to spread. Finally, Joe gets to your own private fortress on an island that sits snugly in a small chain do some real policing. In the aftermath of tiny dots on the map rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and live out your days in peace and solitudeJoe is assigned to bring her home. ThatJoe isn's what Katie thought she was doing when she shut down her old life t the only one trying to start afresh on Jacob's Ladder; save Suki - Dylan, a British superfan and all would have been the aforementioned peace and solitude were it not for the pesky US Government occupying Ringrocktech nerd, is also on the neighbouring island and perpetrating all manner of mischief in case. What went wrong? Did the name of science and quite possibly bringing about the end of all mankind.|isbn=1662453159system fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki's kidnapping connected?
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=T Kingfisher1529421284|title=ThornhedgeLaying Out the Bones|author=Kate Webb|rating=4.5|genre=FantasyCrime|summary=''You had It was one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in a heatwave. In a gully, a right human skeleton came to the surface and forensic testing proved the body to retake your placebe Lee Geary, who had disappeared nine years earlier. He'' T Kingfisher's latest novella is a lovely reimagining of d been a fairytale that is well known drug user and well belovedhad learning disabilities, so it could have been a simple case of misadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn't convinced. But whilst there is Geary was a princess trapped in a tower, sleeping under an eternal enchantment, Thornhedge is not her story. Instead, our protagonist is Toadlingtownie, who so what was stolen away by fairies when she was a new-born baby he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? There are connections to the suicide of Holly Gilbert and secreted away to two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the land time. Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad of fairie where her childhood was spent being taught how the Major Crimes Review Unit (that's cold cases to draw magic from her veins you and cast spellsme) investigate.|isbn=1803364238
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{{Frontpage
|isbn= B0CCCVRSGX0571379559|title=Stories 2The House of Broken Bricks|author=Richard F WalkerFiona Williams|rating=45|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary= This ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is Richard F Walkerthe story of four people. Tess Hembry's second volume of short stories. There roots are thirteen in all and I took something from each Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of thembroken bricks. There isn Insubstantial as it might look, it't a single one that doesn't deserve to be among s stood the others or brings down the overall qualitypassage of time, storms and floods. It can be tricky Her husband, Richard, struggles to review short stories without giving too much awaygrow his vegetables, so I'll just pick two to talk about complete the delivery rounds - and I think to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they give a general flavour're 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
|isbn=17876366071529425867|title=The TrapLost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Catherine Ryan HowardSimon Mason
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's a scene replicated all too often in the early hours of the morningIn Oxford, there are two D I Wilkins. Drunken revellers spilling out Raymond Wilkins is of clubs Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and looking for a way to get homealways exquisitely dressed. Some are lucky D I Ryan Wilkins, son of Ryan and manage to get one father of the few taxis availableRyan, is not. Others squash onto the night bus that will only go as far as one He's not any of the outlying villagesthose things. The woman all regret the He's white, originated from a trailer park, barely educated (reading's not ''really'taxi problem', particularly in the light his thing) and his wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackies. They'the missing womenre usually in lime green or acid yellow. You might wonder if you're being introduced to a police procedural written for laughs. For one young womanWell, you're not. The two men are just different sides of the final stop on same policing coin. Sometimes the bus leaves her a long way short of her homecombination works brilliantly well. She had intended to ring someone to come and collect her - but her phoneSometimes it's deadproblematic. }}{{Frontpage|author=Mosby Woods|title=A Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= The bus had driven off before she had West isn't the chance dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to beg mend this or even if mending it is the best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a man with precognition. Imagine the bus driver to let her use hisstrategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. There's no option but to start walking - unsuitably clothed and That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in high-heeled shoeshistory. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1
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