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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Edel Rodriguez0241636604|title=WormThe Trading Game: A Cuban American OdysseyConfession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic NovelsAutobiography|summary=We're If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in childhoodyour mind, and weyou're in Cubaunlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. The revolution has happened, A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of his background is the countryEast End, has proven himself a Communistwhere he was familiar with violence, poverty and not done nearly enough injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to create a level playing field for allthe London School of Economics. Well, those hoursStevenson is bright - extremely bright -long speeches and he has a facility with numbers which most of his were kind of taking his time awayus can only envy. Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmishstupid. It was his ability at what was, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watchedessentially, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upona card game which got him an internship with Citibank. The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heatEventually, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|isbn=1474616720turned into permanent employment as a trader.
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|authorisbn=K P O'Donnell1035021803|title=The Vital Link (A Spark in the Ashes)Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and 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 business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
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|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover
|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=VL-15, a prototype robot, is desperate to understand who she is. Unfortunately, before she could find any answers, ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the world ended, consumed in an apocalyptic war between the nations shape of Drexel and Renada. Over half-a-century later, civilisation is starting things to rebuildcome. Dr Amelia Wong '' I've heard it said that 'technology' is determined to continue her fatherwhat happens after you's legacyre eighteen. Well, building I must confess that there have been more than a world where machines and humans can live together few decades of technology in harmony, my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but internal frictions and external enemies might bring I'm left with the feeling that it 's all crashing down againgetting away from me. Craig Anderson, leader Some of a group of salvagers called the Exhumers, has his entire life turned upside down when he unearths a prototype combat robot: none other than VLit is - frankly -15 herselfquite frightening. Even after being buried for 65 years Of course, her determination hasn't diminished in I could research the slightest, possibilities and no errant machine, no savage human tribe the probabilities and not even Drexelend up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I's ravaged ecosystem will stop her on her quest for answers…|isbn=B0CKRYFRZMm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.
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|isbnauthor=1838954481Sunny Singh|title=The Misper|author=Kate LondonHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeThrillers |summary=Ryan Kennedy killed The Hotel Arcadia is a police officer: there's no doubt about luxury hotel in an unnamed city thathas suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. He was Hiding from the fifteen-year-old holding terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, the gun and pointing it at DI Kieran Shawhotel manager. He pulled the trigger but due As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the vagaries of residents who are still alive in the jury system hotel, he was found not guilty of both the murder forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and the manslaughter keeps on venturing out of the officer. And so lives must go onher room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. For DI Sarah Collins that means leaving Although they only ever talk over the capital and hoping for a quieter life in the countryside but when a missing teenager is found on phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her territory she's drawn into a wider investigation - keep safe and back into they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the orbit of Ryan Kennedyterrorists.|isbn=086154742X
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|isbn=10350252991529153298|title=Went to London, Took the DogThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Nina StibbeJennie Godfrey|rating=45|genre=AutobiographyGeneral Fiction|summary=Nina Stibbe It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is returning to London for a sabbatical after being away for twenty yearsPrime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly... ) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been at Victoriadisappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's smallholding in Leicestershire which isnupset because she't all s overheard that conducive her father wants to writingmove the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, as thereDown South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she's always something smallholding happening - as you might expectll do anything to prevent that. The other side of She's not worried about the decision was sealed when a room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a very reasonable rentdangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.
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|isbn=B0CKD1L5JL1398524085|title=Radio Free OlympiaHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Jeffrey DunnNicci French|rating=45|genre=General FictionCrime|summary= Petr is an orphanCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. Rescued by the strangeare all worried but - strangely - her husband, reclusive BearAlec, he is brought up far from bustling cities not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and busy human societyGreg, in find the forests body of WashingtonGreg's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human companyfather, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitterDuncan Ackerley, Petr goes on a journey through in the forest, broadcasting river. It was an easy assumption for the strange, wild police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and rarely heard voices then committed suicide when he encounterscouldn't stand the guilt. The 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.
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|isbn=16358662431035906708|title=The Knitting Pattern Writing HandbookDiva|author=Kristina McGrath and Sarah Walworth Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=CraftsGeneral Fiction|summary=''I quickly discovered that putting words and numbers on a page wasn't enough. Creating a pattern that We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was correctborn to Greek parents in Manhattan, clear, conciseNew York, in December 1923 and consistent required a great deal of trial and error, patience, and perseverance.'' (Introduction byFrancoise Danoy) A friend recently showed me a knitting pattern for which only moved to Athens when she'd paid good moneywas thirteen. The first line of the instructions began: Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas'Cast off 100 stitchesto make it more manageable in the States...'' It When she was clear back in Athens - supposedly so that no good she could come of this - the instructions didn't get any better appropriate training for her voice - and (finally) PayPal obliged with a refund when the seller refused as she couldn't afford was raised under the repayment. The pattern looked pretty, but the creator didn't have the basic knowledge Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and skills to enable made no secret of her to connect with preference for her knitters. She should have read ''The Knitting Pattern Writing Handbook''elder sister, Jackie.
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|author=Adam Baron and Benji DaviesChristopher Edge|title=Oscar's LionBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=34
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to have Lucas and his mother – or fatherfriends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book a couple place that has the nickname of times before he has to be ready for school'The Black Hole'. But when he enters his parentsAll big movie fans, they' bedroomre looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the movie starts, all he sees they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepishvery different, and admitting that he wonthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't be hungry for another two dayseven imagine. But there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat they lurch from one film genre to the bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other month. And it can shapeshiftnext, so he can take it to school and it can get him they figure out of a problem. what on earth is going on? And it's wonderful Will they ever get back to have around the house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the rulescinema, and so on. OK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time.|isbn=0008596751}}{{Frontpageto their real lives?|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR|title=Good Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=''This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went to his house and he raped her. In shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift home.1839942738
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|author=V CastroRachel Greenlaw|title=The Haunting of AlejandraCompass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=HorrorTeens|summary=''This was a part I can hear the song of her past that had to stop with herthe sea. She would be The call of the deep, the one to confront thisanswering beat in my heart.''
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|author=Richard KadreyJames Sherwood Metts|title=The Pale House DevilPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=HorrorConfident Readers|summary=Ford and Neuland are Things have been a couple of, well, guys bit sticky for hire I guess, though really the way I thought of them through the book was as a couple of strange detectives! One of them is living, you see, and the other is undead, Earthlings. AI and so one of them kills the livingautomation have been proceeding apace, and the other kills the undead. (Only not each other, obviously). Theyoften replacing jobs they're on a job in New York that goes badly, and so they head out paid to the West coast to try to lay low for a while do and find some other work tasks that took time to keep them goingaccomplish. But when a young woman called Tilda hires them Just as they were beginning to get used to kill the 'something' that appears all this technological change and starting to be haunting a wealthy gentleman's house they find themselves uncovering a whole lot think of family historyother, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and a terrifyingly powerful creature that , along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they've never come across before!depend so heavily.|isbn=18033638941736128426
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|author=Helen CooperMatthew Tree|title=The Taming of the CatWe'll Never Know|rating=34.5|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Once again, mice are pitched against cat. In this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case you're seeing a connectionTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, they live in a cheese shop drunk and therefore all the names used here seem to be the names chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of cheeses. Anyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-tracised, for the way his habits don't match the other mice he lives with. They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the visuals on it. And that story-telling will come in handy one night, when he feels artistic passions all alone failed miserably and cast out. It's almost as if there were another character from fable who had had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to tell stories to keep themselves alive. This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse communityhis studies, though, as all the others had the chance to half-inch some cheese while the cat was distractedcultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|isbn=0571376010B0CVFXPGP8
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|isbnauthor=B0CDZRGT1MA G Slatter|title=Super Short Stories: Flash Fiction|author=Mark C WallfischThe Briar Book of the Dead|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesFantasy|summary=''Got There's a minute part of me that wants to be amusedkeep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, entertainedall mine, or challenged?''''These 100 stories are super shortat last. None is more than 300 words. You can read one in I just want to enjoy it for a flash.''''Some are funny. Some are poignant. All are shortwhile.''
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|isbn=17328987661529900360|title=The Adventures of Birpus and Bulbus: Book One: The Sour Milk DragonGhost Orchid|author=Wynn Everett-Albanese, Michael Albanese and Indre Ta (Illustrator)Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=When we first meet Birpus It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and Bulbus they're running even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for their lives in the Forest of Fine Reputehis help on difficult cases. Their greatest fear has come about: His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the Sour Milk Dragon is chasing themhelp of a psychologist only worked for a while. HeFinally, it was Robin, Delaware's right behind thempartner, spewing hot, sour milk from his nostrilswho nudged Milo into asking for help again. (Please don't try this at home: it won't end wellShe knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed.) FortunatelyThe next case did look simple, they though. Two lovers were nearly at Nobby Lob-lolly - and when murdered in the swimming pool of a ladder of moss and vines was lowered for them, they escapedremote property in Bel Air. They climbed up He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's not the Tree Wee homes high up in Italian. But which of them was the tangled woods where they lived with their Grand Wees, Nester Nook and Granny Cranny.primary target?
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|isbn=14722639361529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The FigurineSecret Life of a Vet|author=Victoria HislopSion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=General FictionAnimals and Wildlife|summary=It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to GreeceSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. She His father was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home a GP and refused Rowlands didn't want to returnfollow in his footsteps, but Mary and Hamish (Helenaparticularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritagelife. Her trip to When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the first of several annual visitsjob for him. She grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, DinaBefore long, but he was wary at Liverpool University. It hadn't - and frightened as with so many students - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He been his dream since he was proud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate thema child. His prejudices included HelenaIf anything, he's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestorsd wanted to be a professional footballer.
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|authorisbn=Cody Goodfellow0861541774|title=VerticalA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=3.54|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= ThereDCI Domenic Jejeune's something about tall buildings close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that just captures my imaginationhe was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. Who doesn't love Initially, he faced a good view from up high, after all? Even charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. Now he could be facing the drabbest office building is somewhere I'm intrigued death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to get inside if ithelp as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn's 40 stories tallt help Danny at all. So when I picked up this book – about people who scale tall buildings for fun – I was instantly intrigued.|isbn= 1803363991
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|author=Hannah Gold and Levi PinfoldAlexander McCall Smith|title=Finding BearThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=[[The Last Bear Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a lot further north than many people would venturemore personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and finding look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with trip to Canada to get away for a polar bear – that she called Bearwhile. Back homeKatie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, things on and so jumps at the domestic and family front are a bit advancedchance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, but not perfect for herbringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last left onIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. For Katie has no experience in running a bear doing very Bearbusiness, or in match-y things making, but Ness has been shot full confidence in her abilities, and wounded. Desperate to make sure hethere's OK, she and always her father return to the Arctic and hope that in a world of very white helpful (and very dangerous thingsrather handsome) neighbour, William, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the friendship can continue.to lend a hand…|isbn=00085820171846976596
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|isbn=18041832100811771741|title=No ReserveInstaKnits for Baby|author=Felix FrancisMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersCrafts|summary=Thirty-four-year-old Theo Jennings shouldnMelissa Leapman's ''t have been on the rostrum when the colt - as yet unnamed - came up InstaKnits for auction, but Peter Radway, the chairman, hadnBaby''t arrived, so he continued his sessiongives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. To say that he was shocked when the bidding reached three million pounds would Some will be an understatement. A lovely animal quick knits - but three million pounds? Two men had been bidding against each otherothers are of the 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. Brian Kitman and Elliot The projects are divided by the time they'Mitch' Mitchell were wellll take to complete -known less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and respected in the racing industrymore than twenty hours. Jennings was in one of All the cubicles in the toilets when the two men came in projects are attractive, modern and their conversation revealed that the horse had been deliberately bid up to that figureuseable. Both were happy I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that they had insurance in place. The following morning, the horse was dead in its stall's me being picky.
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|author=Sarah WilsonDean Koontz|title=This One Wild and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured worldThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre= LifestyleParanormal|summary= My favourite Mary Oliver line Benny is the one in which she asks ''What is it you plan having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to do with your one wild his home, and precious life?it'' I get to love s possible that line so much because my answer whoever or whatever was inside is ''Thisthe thing that has trashed his house! Precisely The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all thisbad luck.'' I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild and precious life the way I want toHe is a nice person. Sarah Wilson is equally luckyA really nice person. In her book So fortunately for Benny it turns out that takes Oliver's words as her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges the source) she pushes us delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to think about whether we really ''are'' living the life we want – the best life that we could be livinghelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Her answer Spike is an unequivocal ''nogoing to take care of Benny, we are not''. Don't and will certainly take care what youof Benny're doings enemies, if he, Benny, she thinks you and Harper (we, I) could be doing more…And shea waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's effing furious about the fact that we wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are not.|isbn=17856338481662500491
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|isbnauthor=1839948493Adam Stower|title=A World of Dogs|author=Carlie Sorosiak Murray and Luisa UribeBun|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers |summary=In the interests of full disclosureMurray is supposed to be a humble, I must tell you that I'm a sucker for dogs. In nearly eight decadestidy and friendly cat, I've never met one I didn't trust who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and I've loved most , well, whatever takes his fancy next of them. I wish I felt the same about human beingstwo. SoBut he's a bad magician's cat, any book about dogsso his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, I'm going to sit down and devour. Then I'm going to go the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and read it properlywhiffs. And so This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was with ''A World of Dogs'', with ninety-six pages devoted entirely to my four-legged friends. Author Carlie Sorosiak found herself the accidental owner of an American Dingo - shebe honest, but he's learned quite a lot about dogs since then.turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=0008561249
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|isbn=1405951680B0C47LV1PC|title=The Safe HouseFragility|author=Cameron WardMosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Jess Walker accepted an offer (OKCan you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, actually she was gently nudged into is the question should you make it by her friend? Or is the question if you did, Rupert) to caretake a luxury property in would it land? The catch is that the Australian outback answer for a couple of monthsboth could well be... After the problems she'd had at work, it seemed like just the break she needed. She was no longer a data analyst for . ''Fragility'' is set as the Metropolitan police in London: she was Jess who was returning to the country city of her birth and in need of the space Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to get over emerge from the traumatic end of her relationship with Charles. A few weeks in the Otway Ranges in Victoria sounded like just restrictions imposed during the ticket.covid pandemic
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|authorisbn=Rachel Harrison1529431735|title=Bad DollsThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Short StoriesCrime|summary=It's been some time since IFebruary 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins've read any horrorreturn all the more surprising. I had a couple of misspent teen years reading Stephen King, borrowing He'd been exiled on the books from Costa del Sol as 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 wanted drug smuggler for fear of the vampires outside! a decade. DonThe return has come about because he't worry s had a letter from his ex- this short story collection isn't like wife, saying that! It doesnshe't have those jump scares, s ill and I didnhasn't have long to read it during daylight hours only! live. But it It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is creepy, and I found most of that feeling came from the fact that these are stories about womenabducted, 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 stripped to a hen party his underwear and a coping with grief.|isbn=1803363932}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1394159544|title=Recycling for Dummies|author=Sarah Winkler|rating=5|genre=Lifestyle|summary=''Recycling one ton of plastic can save up to 16.3 barrels of oil.'' ''Recycling one ton of paper can save 17 trees from being cut down.'' If you send an apple core to landfill, it will take between 6 months and 2 years to decompose. A glass bottle will take up sent to 1 million years. As a just-post-WWII baby, I faced a dilemma: reducing, reusing and recycling is part of my DNA. NEVER throw away anything that might ''possibly'' come in handy now or watery grave in the future. NEVER buy anything if you can cobble together something that would serve the purposeboot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Almost everything can be used one more time and any purchase must pass the test of '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 at you) and dropping it in the kerbside bin. Yes, I could go searching on the internet - and get conflicting advice - but what I needed was a recycling bible.swarning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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|author=Lauren St JohnAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Finding WonderThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Roo's life has become almost impossibly difficult. Her mum died when she was youngEli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and now she finds herself awoken in the middle of evening a helper at the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his way to lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the corner shop to buy a lottery ticketfamily. When asked what other family she hasA few short years ago, she can only name her auntEli's parents were both lost to the titular race, Joni, who she knows her dad didn't think very highly a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company ofa magical beast. But she This has no one elsemade the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, and so off she goes Eli knows his only hope is to live with her unreliable aunt. Things continue dare to get worse for Rooenter what he most hates, as when she and Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, it breaks down in with the sole aim the middle prize of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=05713761690571382231
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|isbn=1448309743178763681X|title=The Devil Stone (DCI Christine Caplan)Knife Skills for Beginners|author=Caro RamsayOrlando Murrin
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=In the village 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 Cronchie on the West coast of Scotland, five members of a wealthy family are found murderedgetting both men and women to do what he wanted. The only item missing from Paul ''somehow'' got the home is the Devil Stone: myth says impression that if he'd be at the stone is removed from Otterburn Houseschool to assist Paul, who had a broken arm, death will follow. The only suspects are known Satanists but in many ways, thatit didn's an easy conclusion given t turn out that two of them 'discovered' way. The teaching - and the bodyproblems - are all his own. The Senior Investigating Office is DCI Bob Oswald but when one thing he disappearshadn't expected was for someone to turn up dead. Unfortunately, DCI Christine Caplan is pulled in he was the person who discovered the body and everyone knows that the police consider that person to 'shadow' himbe the prime suspect.
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|author= Kay ChronisterSarah Marsh|title= Desert CreaturesA Sign of Her Own|rating= 43.5|genre= Dystopian General Fiction|summary= With After a bout of scarlet fever as a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanitychild, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrillEllen Lark loses her hearing. Whether it is Suddenly plunged into a robotic takeoverworld of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a world devoid time when the use of water or a nuclear holocaustsign language was seen as something only savages do, this genre Ellen is sent to a way for humans school where she is taught to cathartically experience their most existential fearslip read, but physically restrained from signing. ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of system called Visible Speech. At the fears that exist for humanity today. It same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a shocking novel that still manages to find hopecomplicated tangle of espionage.|isbn=18033649981035401614
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|authorisbn=Christopher Fowler1803816759|title=Word MonkeyThe Unravelling|author=Will Gibson|rating=54|genre=AutobiographyScience Fiction|summary= It's 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the first of August in the middle of wealthy and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a cool wet summer in East Anglia. I decided not to swim at the pool in favour bit of going adventure and to my beach hutget stuck into some really gritty crime detection. The weather closed inBut then something goes horribly wrong with the AI system that now runs everything, rain arrivedmaking life easier for many, and I decided not riots start to do that eitherspread. When I finished reading this bookFinally, I realised it was because (a) I wanted to finish reading this book and (b) I did not want Joe gets to do so anywhere near my shacksome real policing. No spoiler alerts, In the aftermath of the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was' – rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosisJoe is assigned to bring her home. There is something very strange about being made Joe isn't the only one trying to laugh by save Suki - Dylan, a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dyingBritish superfan and tech nerd, and you know he actually is at that point, because he doesalso on the case. He did.|isbn=0857529625What went wrong? Did the system fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki's kidnapping connected?
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15290776991529421284|title=The Raging Storm (Two Rivers)Laying Out the Bones|author=Ann CleevesKate Webb
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=''It's all bloody peculiar, isn't it, Sir?'' Well yes, it is. Jem Rosco blew into the local pub was one evening in of those flash downpours that the middle of an autumn gale, stayed for about a month and then turned up, naked and dead, British weather often delivers in a small boat, anchored in Scully Cove close to the village of Greystone, in Devonheatwave. Rosco had the status of In a national treasure: gully, a renowned adventurer, round human skeleton came to the world sailor surface and all round ''celebrity''forensic testing proved the body to be Lee Geary, who had disappeared nine years earlier. I He''nearly'' said 'all-round good egg' but as we'll find outd been a known drug user and had learning disabilities, he so it could be more than have been a little bit close with money and his background isnsimple case of misadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn't exactly an open bookconvinced. Where did Geary was a townie, so what was he get doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? There are connections to the money for his first boat? suicide of Holly Gilbert and to two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the time. How did he finance Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad of the trip?Major Crimes Review Unit (that's cold cases to you and me) investigate.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0CC9W7GLR0571379559|title=On the Beach: The Winter VisitorHouse of Broken Bricks|author=Chris Green and Jenny FiondaFiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=For SharingLiterary Fiction|summary=Kit and Teal were just beginning to wonder whether it was better to ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be at homehappier there, bored but warminstead, or frozen cold and building sand sculptures she lives in the house on a snowy beach when a large slab the riverbank, built of silvery ice drifted onto the shorelinebroken bricks. On top Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of the ice was a polar beartime, storms and floods. As the ice bumped onto the sandHer husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the bear woke delivery rounds - and with wobbly legs moved from the iceto bring in sufficient money. Kit was all for making a run for itThey have twin boys - Sonny and Max, but Teal knew that the bear was hungry and gave him one apple and then anotherrainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. He obviously needed to be taken home on the bus People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and given a good meal and somewhere to sleepthere's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny. What else would you do?
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Claire North1529425867|title=House of OdysseusLost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Simon Mason|rating=4.5|genre= Literary Fiction Crime|summary= In Oxford, there are two D I Wilkins. Raymond Wilkins is of Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and always exquisitely dressed. D I Ryan Wilkins, son of Ryan and father of Ryan, is not. He's not any of those things. He'What could matter more than love?s white, originated from a trailer park, barely educated (reading's not '' The follow-up to the excellent really''Ithacahis thing) and his wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackies. They're usually in lime green or acid yellow. You might wonder if you' picks up re being introduced to a few months after where we left offpolice procedural written for laughs. In the palace of Odysseus Well, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned homeyou're not. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne The two men are just different sides of the Western Islessame policing coin. Having survived – politically and physical – Sometimes the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithacacombination works brilliantly well. Sometimes it's shores, Queen Penelope problematic.}}{{Frontpage|author=Mosby Woods|title=A Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is on the brink best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, a fragile peacepush for climate action there. One A feeling that shatters however nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a man with precognition. Imagine the return strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of Orestescircumstances. That man would be valuable, King of Mycenaeright? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, and his sister Elektra, seeking refugethat this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|isbn=0356516075B0C9SNG8R1
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