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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00084049250008517061|title=The Killing KindDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Jane CaseyStig Abell|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=Difficult clients were nothing new to barrister Ingrid Lewis but John Webster came as something of a surpriseFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. After allThere’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, it was Livia and her cross-examination of the 'victim' which saved him from daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lengthy prison sentence. He'd been accused lot of stalking the woman but it didn't take long to establish that compromise: does Jake give up his off- if anything - it was the other way around. Soon Ingrid never seemed to be free of John Webster grid and then she came relaxing life to see him as a threat and was forced move in with Livia or does Livia move to remember that the police officer at his trial had told Little Sky despite her that reservations about whether or not this was is the best chance they'd had to put Webster away future she wants for a long time: he was a very dangerous manherself and her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on the back burner.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=00083955941786482126|title=Both of YouThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Adele ParksElly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=You could be forgiven for thinking that Leigh Fletcher has it all: great husband and two gorgeous stepsons whom she adoresBuilders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. Then, one Monday, she went to work and never came homeThere was no skull. MarkWas this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Oli and Seb are shatteredDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. WellIt's difficult as Ruth knows, Mark and Seb are but OliNelson doesn's sixteen and at the stage where he thinks boredom t, that she is pregnant with his best look. He's been child as a bit off with Leigh for a while but she put it down to him growing up and starting to become independentresult of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Seb's only twelve and Leigh's absence hits him hard. Then Daan JanssenHer condition will be obvious before long, a wealthy Dutch businessman, reports his wife, Kai missing. She too has vanished without tracenot least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=14736857450008551324|title=Unbreak Your HeartThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Katie MarshNeil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=When Beth Carlyle and Simon Withers first met they were on opposite ends of an angry exchange - well, Simon was angry and Beth was doing her best to apologise for having knocked SimonIt's son, Jake, off his bikeunusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. He wasn't hurt but Jake Neither side likes or has historyany respect for the other. He has HLHS - thatBut Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome for those prepared to tell the police where the body of you a missing person is buried and who are not ''au fait'' with your medical acronymswas responsible for her death. When This person, he was bornpromises, is someone big and it will be worth the left side police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his heart hadn't developed properly sentence and he needed open-heart surgery when he was a few days oldto get an early parole date. SoNot much to ask, Simon has every right is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to be overdo the other thing that Hardie demanded -protective particularly when someone isnmake certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what't looking where they're drivings happening.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Louie Stowell0008405026|title=OtherlandA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary= Myra It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and Rohan are like Yin and Yang – Myra is loudthe investigation ground to a halt. Now, bright and hates rulesher mother, while Rohan is very politeHelena, serious and worries her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the tiniest thingspositioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Their only connection? Being born What looked as though it was going to be an open-and briefly dying at -shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the same time at the same hospital on Midsummerexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's dayboss, Una Burt) are less convinced.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379877|title=The Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=3. And so5|genre=Crime|summary=Edward Jevons is a working-class young man, every year their families get together to celebrate the twoobsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's birthday/deathdaya theatre director. But when Rohan He's little sister Shilpa is taken by the fairy queenalso self-obsessed, demanding, they must journey handsome and entitled and uses Edward to the Otherland, a magical realm full of fairies, vampires, dragons, run errands for him. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and Godshe's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. It Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's going not like most men: Edward is left to be stumble upon the worst night two of their livesthem kissing in a dark passageway.|isbn=1788000463
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=walker14Jo Callaghan|title=The Coldest Case (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)|author=Martin WalkerLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was when he saw Elisabeth Daynes' work in When a man is found crucified on the prehistory museum at Les Eyzies that chief top of police Bruno Courreges had a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the idea which he thought might help his bosscase alongside her sidekick, chief of detectives Jalipeauthe AI detective Lock. It's their first live case together, known as J-Jhaving previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, to solve Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that had haunted him for thirty years. The body draws a lot of a young male was found in the woods but he was never identified and his killer never brought unwanted attention to justicetheir AI Future Policing project. What if an artist could recreate the face from the skull and the resulting publicity Will they be used able to identify solve the young man? J-J calls case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the skull 'Oscar' case and has , potentially, out of a picture on his door: he sees it every time he leaves his office: he doesn't want to forget Oscar until his killer has been brought to justice.career?|isbn=139851120X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Martha Leigh1399613073|title= Invisible Ink: A Family MemoirMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating= 4.5|genre= BiographyThrillers|summary= Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Martha Leigh begins her book talking about Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a childhood spent in bonus when you aim to be a slightly eccentric, immediately recognisable upper middle class English familycardiothoracic surgeon. Her father Laura is a Cambridge don, forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the complete correspondence free spirit of the philosopher Jeangroup and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-Jacques Rousseau, his lifefuelled party and it's workgoing to end in tragedy. Her mother is a concert pianist We don't know who practises for hours every daysuffered the tragedy or the consequences. Neither parent is hugely interested in Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the practicalities of lifethree friends. There is love in the house but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.|isbn=1800460384
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Darren Shan0241636604|title=Archibald Lox and the Slides of Bon RepellThe Trading Game: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 2 of 3A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersAutobiography|summary=SoIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. Having done A hoodie and jeans replaces the impossible pin-stripe suit and unpicked his background is the lock East 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 Forgotten CryptLondon 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, from a card game which the Departed communicate got him an internship with the MergeCitibank. Eventually, Archie now has ''gropthis 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=Crime|summary=It' s twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to think aboutthe English country village where she grew up. But before that She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, soireesCarole. Soirees! Archie, much to Inez Freya's former mentor and Carole's amusementclose friend, Arthur Crockleford, doesn't even know what one of those isdead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. But he manages Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to come through the fancy party unscathedvillage: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, even after an uncomfortable encounter with Kurtisshe has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, whose fledgling romance with Inez was crushed she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the first volume love of this seriesher life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced. |isbn=B093J9TF73
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Adrian TchaikovskyAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title= Shards of EarthAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating= 45|genre= Science Fiction|summary= Eighty years ago, Earth was destroyed, warped into an unrecognisable ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape by the moon-sized aliens known as the Architectsof things to come. Humanity '' I've heard it said that 'technology' is scattered, constantly fleeing as world what happens after world falls to the architectyou's reshapingre eighteen. Then Well, just when they had the human race on the run, the Architects vanished. And so, the memories I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of the war fades, heroes are forgotten, and humanity begins to fracture and fight among themselvestechnology in my lifetime. Idris Telemmier, a man genetically engineered I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to try and communicate me but I'm left with the Architects, does not want to be rememberedfeeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. But Of course, when he I could research the possibilities and the crew of the salvage ship he calls home discover probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what appears to be recent Architect activity, suddenly he is thrust back into they're talking about or the spotlightlatest conspiracy theorist. As he I needed people I knew I could trust and his allies bounce from star system to star system, chased by alien crime syndicates, human secret police and rich slavers, he slowly begins to realise that the real war is only just getting started…|isbn=1529051886who could deliver information in a way I could understand.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1848458428Sunny Singh|title=Local Woman Missing|author=Mary KubicaHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Eleven years ago, The Hotel Arcadia is a man regularly came home to his wife with lipstick marks on his collar and lame excuses as to why he was late - again. His wife was luxury hotel in the habit of going out for an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a run late at nightterrorist group. It was Hiding from the only time she had for herself when she didn't have to look after her baby - but when she was out she would meet up with terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a manwartime photographer and Abhi, grateful for the unquestioning affection he gave herhotel manager. The locality was stunned when Shelby Tebow disappearedAs Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, seemingly without he forms a tracebond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, leaving and keeps on venturing out of her husband room to try to look after capture what's happened through her disabled babyphotography. Ten days laterAlthough they only ever talk over the phone, a local woman and their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her six-year-old daughter disappeared. Meredith Dickey was a birth doula keep safe and she'd seemed they both wait to see if they will be under some strain for rescued before they are discovered by the last couple of weeks or so. Her body was eventually found in a seedy motel - it appeared that she'd committed suicide. She left a note saying that her daughter, Delilah, was safe and there was no point in looking for herterrorists.|isbn=086154742X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Nicolas Bouvier1529153298|title=The Japanese ChroniclesList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=TravelGeneral Fiction|summary= It never does to start a review of a book with a quote from the blurb's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, but sometimes ithonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's unavoidablefamily, though. Women have been disappearing. Le Monde reviewed this book Well, at some pointthey've been murdered, with the words but to have 'disappeared'doesn'what the old master craftsmen would call a masterpiecet sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she' It is precisely s overheard that. A masterpiece in the sense of the craft as well as her father wants to move the art of writing. Ifamily 'm going to hesitate to call it Down South'travel writing. When you' because this re from Yorkshire, Down South is as much a history of Japanfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, a mythology-primer for the Japanese culture as it is a personal response move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to living and travelling in prevent that. She's not worried about the countrydangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone. |isbn=1906011044
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Genevieve Gornichec1398524085|title=The Witch's HeartHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=45|genre=FantasyCrime|summary= A modern and approachable reimagining of the Norse myths that centres around a witch named Angrboda. She hides in a forest Charlotte Salter was expected at the edge of the nine worlds, remembering nothing of her past life but that fact that she was survived burnt at the stake three times because of Odinhusband's wrathfiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her attempts to live in peacechildren, howeversons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are quickly thwarted when Loki shows up with all worried but - strangely - her literal heart—the one that was cut from her chest before she was tied to husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the stake—and refuses to leave her alone. After an initial period body of mistrust, Angrboda begins to fall for LokiGreg's charmsfather, Duncan Ackerley, and in the two start river. It was an unusual family made of up a half-dead daughter, a son easy assumption for the police to make thatDuncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's a wolf, little else they can do but get on with their lives and another son that's a snakewonder about what really happened.|isbn=1789097061
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17885497591035906708|title=The Distant DeadDiva|author=Lesley ThomsonDaisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=It We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1940 1923 and twenty-four-year-old Maple Greenhill had gone out for the evening 'with her friend Ida' leaving her three-year-old son, William, at home with her parentsonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. The boy thought that Maple Her original surname was his sister - it was better for the family than the shame of illegitimacy, Kalogeropoulos but Maple had high hopes of putting her life (and Williamfather changed it to 'Callas's) on a better footingto make it more manageable in the States. She When she was going to meet back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her wellvoice -to-do fiancé, hoping to persuade him to come she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and meet made no secret of her preference for her family the following week. Laterelder sister, her body would be found in the bombed-out home where he had taken herJackie.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529407249Christopher Edge|title=The Perfect Lie|author=Jo SpainBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=It was July 2019 Lucas and Erin was happy. She and Danny Ryan were planning his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a few days away: place thathas the nickname of 's always a dangerous thing to do when youThe Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they're married looking forward to a cop but she was hopeful. They'd been married for six months lots of exciting films, and life was good with a decent apartment by the sea in Newportmany, Long Island. many snacks! The knock on However, as the door was insistent movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and when it was opened, Dannythey are swept up into an adventure they couldn's partner, Ben Mitchell was there with a couple of other officerst even imagine. Danny took But as they lurch from one lookfilm genre to the next, turned, walked can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the open window cinema, and jumped to his death from the fourth floor.their real lives? Eighteen months later, Erin would be on trial for her husband's murder.|isbn=1839942738
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1523092734Rachel Greenlaw|title=A Women's Guide to Claiming Space|author=Eliza Van CortCompass and Blade|rating=3.5|genre=Politics and SocietyTeens|summary=''She brings a hug-kick-thunderclap that every woman needs I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in her life. Again and again and againmy heart.'' (Alma Derricks, former CMO, Cirque du Soleil RSD)
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{{Frontpage
|author=Darren ShanJames Sherwood Metts|title=Archibald Lox and the Forgotten Crypt: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 1 of 3Planet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The second trilogy in Shan's ''Merge'' saga opens with our hero, Archie, back in London in Things have been a bit sticky for the world of the BornEarthlings. It's not AI and automation have been easyproceeding apace, explaining often replacing jobs they're paid to his foster parents where he's been, or slipping back into ordinary life do and forgetting about Inez other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and his starting to think of other friends in the Merge, but Archie has done his bestnew ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic.... wellLife was pretty much shut down and, except for visiting veteran locksmith Winston in Big Ben's clock tower and except for fiddling along with that sneaky master lock in Seven Dials every time he can sneak awayit, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=B093H8DPQZ1736128426
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008444501Matthew Tree|title=The Answer to Everything|author=Luke KennardWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Life should have been good for Emily. She had a lovely husband, StevenTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, who was a speech therapist. We'll pass over the fact that they rarely speak to each other drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and don't even sleep in the same bed. It isn't so much that Emily has left the marital bed as that she's sharing a bed with one who had endless crises of her children as it's the only way to get him to sleep during the nightself confidence. Arthur and Matty are gorgeous but they are a handful and Emily has a job So Tim applied himself to cope with too - she teaches drama two days a week. They've not long moved into a new home in Criterion Gardens: it's a trendy area that has been gentrified and it's run on semi-communal lines. The residents even share eco-friendly electric cars his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than owning their ownhis daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241985137A G Slatter|title=The Whole Truth (D I Fawley)|author=Cara HunterBriar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary='' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.''
Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's, a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.
|isbn=1803364548
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529900360
|title=The Ghost Orchid
|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=DI Adam FawleyIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's team got to Edith Launceleve College firstfault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, called there by Jancis Appleby Sturgis was reluctant to see the Principal, Professor Hilary Reynoldsask for his help on difficult cases. There had been an accusation His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of sexual assault by a professor on psychologist only worked for a studentwhile. When Fawley arrived he Finally, it was almost cross: what was the alleged perpetrator doing in the room before theyRobin, Delaware'd even got the details from s partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the victim? The problem involvement was something that Caleb Morgan ''was'' the 'victim' and the alleged perpetrator was Professor Marina Fisherman she loved needed. Just to complicate matters further, Caleb's mother is Petra NewsonThe next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the local MP, and Professor Fisher is swimming pool of a big name remote property in Artificial IntelligenceBel Air. She has He was the heir to an eight-year-old son, buys her wine by the case from Berry Brothers & Rudd, spends more than £1000 a month on clothes Italian shoe empire and has more than ten thousand Twitter followers. When the excrement encounters the ventilation equipment, this she is going married to be an extremely rich man and it''very'' publics not the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Daniel Gibbs with Teresa H Barker1529395224|title=A Tattoo on my BrainLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=AutobiographyAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Alzheimer's is Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a disease that slowly wears away your identity GP and sense of self. I have been directly affected by this cruel diseaseRowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, as have many. Your memories and personality worn away like a statue over time affected particularly when he considered the elements. It seems as if nature wants strain that final victory over you and your dignity. This is what makes Daniel Gibbsbeing on-call put on his father' memoir so admirables life. Daniel Gibbs is When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a neurologist family friend who was diagnosed a vet and was convinced this was the job for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with Alzheimers and has documented so many students - been his journey in ''A Tattoo on my Brain'dream since he was a child. If anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer.|isbn=1108838936
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=16358623530861541774|title=The Sandalmaking WorkshopA Nye of Pheasants|author=Rachel CorrySteve Burrows|rating=4.5|genre=CraftsCrime|summary=A sandal-making workshop? I couldnDCI Domenic Jejeune't really believe its close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, mainly because I'd always thought Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that you'd need more equipment than the average home he was likely to be able to contain but I was intriguedfacing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. Rachel Corry started sandal making accidentally - Initially, he faced a small fire destroyed some charge of her shoesmanslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. One pair had come apart and she Now he could see how be facing the sandal was constructeddeath penalty. Then she realised that she couldn't afford Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to replace all her shoes. Could she combine these two facts to create help as any interference from another police force could provoke a new diplomatic incident and worthwhile craft? She showed quite a few people her first pair and they wouldn't help Danny at all either wanted to know how to do it - or if she'd make them a pair. A new career was born.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1787332098Alexander McCall Smith|title=How to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World|author=Henry ManceThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyGeneral Fiction|summary=''When we do think about animalsThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, we break them down into species run by Ness and groups: cows, dogs, foxesoperating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, elephants and so ontailored service. And we assign them places in society: cows go on plates, dogs on sofas, foxes in rubbish bins, elephants in zoos, Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and millions of wild animals stay out therelook after the business, ''somewhere,'' hopefully on the next David Attenborough series.'' I was going as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to argueget away for a while. I meanKatie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, cows are for cheese (I couldn't consider eating red meat...) and I much prefer my elephants in so jumps at the wild but then I realised that I was quibbling for the sake of itchance to come home to Edinburgh. Essentially that quote sums up my attitude And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to animals - and I consider myself an animal lover. If I had Edinburgh we already love, thanks to choose between the company of humans 44 Scotland Street and the company of animalsIsabel Dalhousie novels, I would probably choose the animalsbut with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. I insisted that I read this book: Katie has no one was trying to stop me experience in running a business, or in match-making, but I was initially reluctant. I eat cheese, eggsNess has full confidence in her abilities, chicken and fish there's always her very helpful (and I needed rather handsome) neighbour, William, to either do so without guilt or change my choices. I suspected that making the decision would not be comfortable.lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Ananda Devi0811771741|title=Eve Out of Her RuinsInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrafts|summary=At not even 200 pages, Eve Out of Her Ruins is one of the shortest books IMelissa Leapman's ''ve read in a long while, but itInstaKnits for Baby's one of the most dramatic. It's also told in gives us a way that I can only describe as brutal: it spares nothing and pulls very few punches, the descriptions stark and unromantic.|isbn=0993009344}} {{Frontpage|isbn=0241985137|title=The Whole Truth (D I Fawley)|author=Cara Hunter|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=DI Adam Fawley's team got collection of knits from toys to Edith Launceleve College first, called there by Jancis Appleby to see the Principal, Professor Hilary Reynoldsblankets. There had been an accusation Some will be quick knits - others are of sexual assault by a professor on a student. When Fawley arrived he was almost cross: what was the alleged perpetrator doing 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the room before theyfire'd even got the details from the victim? variety. The problem was that Caleb Morgan ''was'' projects are divided by the time they'victim' and the alleged perpetrator was Professor Marina Fisher. Just ll take to complicate matters furthercomplete - less than five hours, Caleb's mother is Petra Newson, the local MPfive to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and Professor Fisher is a big name is Artificial Intelligencemore than twenty hours. She has an eight-year-old son, buys her wine by All the case from Berry Brothers & Ruddprojects are attractive, spends more than £1000 a month on clothes modern and has more than ten thousand Twitter followersuseable. When the excrement encounters the ventilation equipment, this is going to be I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects'verybut that'' publics me being picky.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0753558378Dean Koontz|title=Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters|author=Greg McKeownThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=LifestyleParanormal|summary=''The marginal return of working harder was, in fact, negative.'' That's what happened to Patrick McGinnisBenny is having a terrifically bad day. It's no exaggeration to say that He loses his job, he devoted loses his life to the company he worked forfiancee, struggling throughand his house gets trashed. Oh, even when he was illand someone has delivered a really weird, only disturbing coffin-sized object to find his home, and it's possible that he whoever or whatever was working for a bankrupt company. inside is the thing that has trashed his house! His stock had fallen by 97%The thing is, he had lost his health and his job had little valueBenny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He made is a bargain with God; if he survived, he would make some changesnice person. He did survive and came through stronger - and richerA really nice person. There So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house isa new friend, you seea bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a different way: good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny'great things s wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are not reserved for those who bleed, for those who almost break.''|isbn=1662500491
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|isbnauthor=1471181405Adam Stower|title=Nighthawking|author=Russ ThomasMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers |summary=Sheffield's [http://www.sbg.org.uk/ Botanical Gardens] (on Clarkehouse Road, if you'd like Murray is supposed to visit) are an oasis of calm in what's otherwise thought of as an industrial city but this was disrupted when the body of be a young woman was discovered. It had obviously been buried in humble, tidy and friendly cat, one of the beds but who would have started is able to dig her up? It had been in the earth for months sleep and eat and eat and could have been undiscovered for years. The police need to establish who stabbed her - sleep and who left the two, very rarewell, gold aurei on her eyes. DCI Diane Jordan is whatever takes his fancy next of the Investigating Officer and her foot soldiers are DS Adam Tyler and DC Mina Rabbanitwo. TheyBut he're joined by DS Guy Daley whos a bad magician's just returned from extended sick leavecat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. Mina thinks This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's as obnoxious as ever but suspects that turned up and he's not fully recovered from his injuries.ll have to do…|isbn=0008561249
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|authorisbn= Jennifer Saint B0C47LV1PC|title= Ariadne Fragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating= 4.5 |genre= Women's Literary Fiction |summary= This re-telling of the myth of Ariadne and the Minotaur Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is interesting and unusual. Jennifer Saint presents the story in a way that question should you make it? Or is sympathetic to its origins but also appealing to a modern audience. Saint's narrative is told predominantly through the viewpoint of Ariadnequestion if you did, spanning from her childhood to her death, allowing would it land? The catch is that the reader to really connect with Ariadne as a character in her own right rather than just a prop in the heroics of Theseusanswer for both could well be. |isbn=1472273869}} {{Frontpage|author=Gianna Pollero and Sarah Horne|title=Monster Doughnuts|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=After their parents mysteriously disappeared, Grace and Danni have been left to run the family bakery. But Grace needs the doughnuts and sweet treats that Danni bakes for a rather unusual reason..no.even though she ''Fragility''s only ten years old, she is a monster hunter! Monsters have a very sweet tooth, and Grace uses a number set as the city of methods to defeat them such as throwing baking powder on them, or tricking them into eating a sweet treat that willPortland, ultimatelyOregon, be their demise. One day, though, Grace finds herself facing a cyclops monster called Mr Harris, who has a weakness for doughnuts but doesn't seem cautiously begins to explode as emerge from the restrictions imposed during the other monsters do, and so things start to get very strange…|isbn=1848129432covid pandemic
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|isbn=09956478951529431735|title=Sadie and the Sea DogsThe Winter Visitor|author=Maureen Duffy and Anita JoiceJames Henry|rating=3.54|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=SadieIt's mother always said that she was a dreamerFebruary 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, her mind never on what she should be doing. She lives by the River Thames at Greenwich and she loves to spend hours at The Maritime Museum or gazing at Cutty Sark. ''Her class had gone one rainy afternoon''<br>which made Bruce Hopkins''When return all the houses cowered in the gloom,''<br>''To the Maritime Museum''. Her imagination was firedmore surprising. SheHe'd love to sail been exiled on the oceans on an ancient sailing ship and went back regularlyCosta del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. One day she fell asleep under a glass case (itThe return has come about because he's the one where Nelsonhad a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's Trafalgar breeches are on show) and missed the closing bell ill and the attendanthasn's warning shoutt long to live. When she woke (It's hard floors don't make comfy beds) she was to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the midst boot of an adventure that she could never have imagined in a world of dolphins, pirates, mermaids and treasurestolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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|author=Kristen O'NealAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Lycanthropy and Other Chronic IllnessesThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=54|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary= Having recently been diagnosed Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with chronic Lyme diseasehim, Priya has to come to terms and in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with the fact that she may be his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in constant pain for the rest of her lifefamily. She joins ''Oof Ouch My Bones' A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the titular race, an online support group a globe-trotting adventure where she talks all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of a bunch of other teens living with chronic illnessesmagical beast. They talk about their troubles and help each other out, while also providing an escape This has made the race anathema to just joke and mess around. When Brigid—one of her closest friends—doesn't respond the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to the chat for a whileconfession from gran, Priya becomes concerned. She decides to steal her parents' car and drive Eli knows his only hope is to Brigid's house dare to check up on her. But enter what she doesn't expect to find there is a werewolf in he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the basement end – and for that werewolf to be the girl she has been talking only thing to online for the past few monthspossibly save his gran.|isbn=16836923490571382231
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|authorisbn=Mercedes Helnwein178763681X|title=SlingshotKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Orlando Murrin|rating=34|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Gracie Welles has resigned herself Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. He didn't really want to being lonely. As but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a secret illegitimate daughter way of getting both men and women to do what he wanted. Paul ''somehow'' got the impression that he'd be at the school to assist Paul, who had a man with a "real" familybroken arm, she is used to not being a priority in peoplebut it didn's livest turn out that way. The teaching - and the problems - are all his own. But when she defends a random boy in her class with her slingshot, her simple existence is changed The one thing he hadn't expected was for goodsomeone to turn up dead. No longer can she spend her time writing novels in solitude Unfortunately, for her life now has a boy in it he was the person who discovered the body and everyone knows that the police consider that she never asked for: Wade Scholfieldperson to be the prime suspect.|isbn=152905818X
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