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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Catherine Steadman0008517061|title=The Disappearing ActDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= British actress Mia Eliot is on the cusp of success. Great success. If the rumours are trueFormer Metropolitan Police detective, award season is going to treat her wellJake Johnson, acknowledging her for her latest, critically acclaimed productionhas settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. She's going places but so There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, unfortunately, is Livia and her partner. And the places he's going take him towards liesdaughter Diana, deceit and as moving in together would mean a pretty young thing in the form lot of compromise: does Jake give up his new cooff-star. It's a good time grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the future she wants for Mia to escape, herself and pilot season her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in LA provides just the excusepresent and putting the future on the back burner.|isbn=1471189783
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Christophe Medler1786482126|title=Madrigal: A Closely Guarded SecretThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary= Set against Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the backdrop of the English Civil War, a secret plan (codesite was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments -named Madrigal) is when they discovered by Sir Robert Douse in the summer bones of 1642a child beneath a doorway. As There was no skull. Was this a loyal servant of the Kingritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, and Head that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the Secret Serviceone night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, it not least because Ruth is Robert's duty prone to uncover the details sudden bouts of the plan and follow the clues to uncover one of the most guarded secrets in history—especially since the plot could affect the Kingsickness.|isbn=B095HY8SXQ
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Tasha Suri0008551324|title=The Jasmine ThroneDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=FantasyCrime|summary= On It's unusual for anyone from the night of her sacred burning, Princess Malini defies her brother and refuses to step on Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the pyreother. She But Davie Hardie is immediately sent struggling in prison and he's prepared to be imprisoned on tell the police where the Hirana: an ancient temple that was once filled with body of a community of people missing person is buried and who got powers from the mysterious deathless waterswas responsible for her death. But now the temple is nothing more than an overgrown This person, decaying ruin. One dayhe promises, Malini witnesses a girl kill is someone with magicbig and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. Instead And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of reporting her for such a gruesome crimehis sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, Malini claims is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that the girl saved her Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from an attacker and begs for the girl to become her own personal maidservantwhat's happening.|isbn=0356515648
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B088YWF5BC0008405026|title=The Lies We TellA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane CorryCasey|rating=45|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Sarah Wallace said that she grew up on a council estate in Kent and that she had two brothers and two sistersIt's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. It seemed She was never found and the investigation ground to have been a loving, stable familyhalt. When we first meet herNow, she can't sleep because her sonmother, FreddieHelena, who's nearly sixteen, hasn't come home by the time he sort of half-promised he'd be and her father are dead in bytheir bed. Her husbandInitially, Tom, is fast asleep: they're moving house in the morning it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but hethere's still something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be going to work an open-and he needs his sleep-shut case is now a complex double murder. He wakes, though, when Freddie does come Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in and overhears him tell his mother that heRosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's killed someoneboss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Joseph Knox0571379877|title=True Crime StoryThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= Joseph Knox, known for his series surrounding Detective Aidan WaitsEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, has created a new genre obsessed with his latest novelupper-class friends, "True Crime Story"Robert and Stanza. The story follows the disappearance of Zoe Nolan from her university halls of residence Robert's a theatre director. Split into four parts He's also self-obsessed, demanding, the reader is taken through the life handsome and disappearance of Zoe through the eyes of her twin sister, other family, friends entitled and professionals, such as the policeuses Edward to run errands for him. The various accounts help the reader get Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to know Zoe, Robert. Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or at least the Zoe she presented tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to others. However, stumble upon the twists and turns at the end two of each chapter leave you shocked, confused and unsure of what is true or fabricatedthem kissing in a dark passageway. Whose accounts can we trust?|isbn=0857527703
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{{Frontpage
|author=Justine Avery and Naday MeldovaJo Callaghan|title=Leave No, No, No!Trace
|rating=4
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=They say the best picture books are the simplest ones. And nothing could be truer of this latest from Justine Avery, a Bookbag favourite.
 
''No, No, No!'' is based around the simplest text imaginable.
 
''No, no, no! Okay, okay. Yes, you may.''
 
That's it! But, like all the best picture books, this tiny snippet of text is a veritable tardis - so much bigger on the inside that it appears on the outside.
|isbn=1638820457
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{{Frontpage
|author=Monica Connell
|title=Against a Peacock Sky
|rating=5
|genre=Travel
|summary= Monica Connell went to Nepal to do the fieldwork for her Ph.D. in social anthropology. I think it is important to know that. She went on a grant-supported trip, with a relatively specific objective. She wasn't a hippy wanderer looking for Shangri-la. She wasn't a mere tourist passing through. She went with a fundamental aim of learning about these people and how they lived. She also went, presumably, with the academic discipline of how to find these things out, how to organise them in her mind, how to "understand" them in the context of her own paradigms, and how to keep enough notes and files and photos to help her create some greater sense of the experience after the event. Fortunately, she also went with a sense of open-ness and curiosity and a willingness to muck-in, to break her own rules and to truly connect with the people of the village where she hauled up.
|isbn=1780600429
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1409181669
|title=The Maidens
|author=Alex Michaelides
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Mariana was convinced that Professor Edward Fosca had committed two murders and looked likely When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to get away with them both. She needed to think carefully about what she knew and decide how she should proceed. Everything - or so she thought - had begun with the death of Tara Hampton on case alongside her sidekick, the Paradise nature reserve in CambridgeAI detective Lock. She'd been brutally stabbed and MarianaIt's niecetheir first live case together, Zoe, had telephoned her in distresshaving previously been very successful with several cold cases. Tara had been her best friend But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and she was struggling a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to copetheir AI Future Policing project. Mariana wasn't ''entirely'' happy about having Will they be able to go to Cambridgesolve the case in time, but she caught or will Kat find herself taken off the first fast train from King's Cross. Mariana case and Zoe were close and had been made all the more so by the death of Mariana's husband, Sebastianpotentially, in out of a swimming accident on Naxos some fourteen months earlier. Zoe had been their surrogate daughter after the death of Zoe's mother and Mariana's sister, Eliza.career?|isbn=139851120X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Maisie Chan1399613073|title=Danny Chung Does Not Do MathsMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=Danny is eleven years oldOlivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and what he really, really loves to do is drawtheir friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. He creates fantastical comicsOlivia is ruthlessly ambitious, whilst his best friend Ravi adds the wordswhich is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Danny's dad, however, wants Danny to concentrate on his maths, Laura is a perfectionist and forget about the drawing, because he says nobody can make a living from drawing! trauma doctor. At least Danny has his own room, where he can draw in secret Anjali is the free spirit of the group and in peaceshe becomes a GP. But then one day his parents tell him When we first meet them they have 're at a surprise for him, drug and alcohol-fuelled party and this surprise turns out it's going to be his grandmother who has come over from China to live with them, and end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will not only be sharing Danny's bedroom but she an eerily similar event that will also be sleeping on the top bunk of his bunk bed! Danny is horrified! His Nai Nai (grandmother) speaks no English, and Danny finds himself forced into being her babysitter, and showing her around impact the townthree friends. Poor DannyThis time, stuck on a maths project, frustrated with his bedroom situation, and then he even has a falling out with Ravi..it's their teenage children who are involved.how on earth will things ever get better?!|isbn=180078001X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Terry Miles0241636604|title=RabbitsThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Science FictionAutobiography|summary=Welcome If you were to the world bring up an image of The Game. Or should that be the gamea city banker in your mind, for while it ought to be capitalised to high heaven, it never leaves lower case throughout this book. Ityou's also called Rabbits, although only as a slangy term for it – as far as anyone knows, it has no official title, no official source, no hard and fast structure, and re unlikely to the average person no obvious entry pointthink of someone like Gary Stevenson. A bit like hoodie and jeans replaces the game of life then. Yes, this pin-stripe suit and his background is the game of life for a certain tribe of people – the fan of the conspiracyEast End, the computer gamewhere he was familiar with violence, the hack from the darkest of webspoverty and injustice. People like our hero, K, named like that in the least Kafkaesque manner possible. K and There was no posh public school on his bezzies are trying CV - but he had been to be historians the London School of the game, Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and have studied amongst many things the he has a facility with numbers which most unique of high score boards, for the lists of who has successfully won the game are in the most peculiar places, and are still very shortus can only envy. However this time it's different. This time the game seems the He also realised that most dangerous, nay lethal, the most broken it's ever been – morally and otherwiserich people expect poor people to be stupid. Unfortunately for K, in trying to sort out It was his ability at what the game is doingwas, if it's even being playedessentially, and how his loved ones might be kept safe, he is only to find out that the line between observing and learning about the a card gamewhich got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, and playing it, is this turned into permanent employment as a very thin one indeedtrader...|isbn=1529016932
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=C J Carey1035021803|title=WidowlandThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=It's April 1953twenty 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 Adolf HitlerCarole's schedule includes going to Moscow to attend the state funeral of Joseph Stalin then within weeks coming to Londonclose friend, parading around a bitArthur Crockleford, is dead and watching over the sanctioned return circumstances seem suspicious, to say the throne of Edward VIII with his wife, Queen Wallisleast. For yes, Britain caved in Arthur was the lead-up reason why Freya had not been back to the World War Two that certainly didn't happen as we know itvillage: Arthur, and we are now a protectorate – wellshe feels, we share enough of the same blood as the Germanic peoples on ''the mainland''let her down badly. But this is most certainly a different Britain, for Nazi-styled phrenology, and ideas of female purposeEven though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has put all of that gender into a caste system, ranging from high-brow office bigwigs to the drudges, and beyond those, right on down not felt able to be near the childless, man or pursue the husbandless and the widowsprofession she loved. Female literacy is actively discouraged. And in this puritanical existence, our heroine, Rose Ransom, is employed with After the task of bowdlerising classical literature to take all encouragement for female emancipation out of it – after allsplit, not every book can be bannedshe worked in a cafe, met and not every story excised immediately married James (on the rebound from British civilisation, and so they just get a hefty tweak towards the party line before they're stamped ready for reprint. That is love of her joblife, at least, until the first emerging signs of female protest come to light, with their potential to spoil Hitler's visitwho was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.|isbn=152941198X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Louise BeechAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=This Is How We Are HumanAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=45|genre=General Science Fiction|summary=Veronica ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a devoted single mother few decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to her son, Sebastian - me but she canI't give him everything he wants. Sebastian has decided m left with the feeling that it's time for him to have sexall getting away from me. But as an autistic 20 yearSome of it is -oldfrankly - quite frightening. Of course, thatI could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they's easier said than donere talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. And it's starting to cause them both problems I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand. |isbn=1913193713
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B093VPBL5LSunny Singh|title=Cape Henry House|author=Jolly Walker BittickHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=General FictionThrillers |summary=Meet BosnerThe Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, orthere is Sam, to give him his full titlea wartime photographer and Abhi, Petty Officer Third Class Bosnerthe hotel manager. We never really find out if As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, he has forms a first name: there's merely a hint that he had the nickname 'Secretary' at one point. He's simply Bosner bond with Sam who refuses to one be cowed by events, and all. When we first encounter him hekeeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's exploring his memories of 2008 when he was a greaser on helicopters (or helos, as they were called) at a naval establishmenthappened through her photography. The hours could be long and he was often working nights but at Although they only ever talk over the age of twenty-onephone, there was always a way their friendship grows as Abhi tries to work some fun (think drinking help her keep safe and eating) into his daythey both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=086154742X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Hannah Whitten1529153298|title=For the WolfThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=FantasyGeneral Fiction|summary=In RedIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, the first daughter becomes queenthough. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, and the second daughter becomes a sacrificebut to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. To Red Miv's misfortune, upset because she is the second daughter. Sent alone into the woods with nothing but the cape on 's overheard that her back, Red knows what father wants to expect: within move the woods is a wolffamily 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, and he Down South is the one who will decide the fate of their kingdom. If she is not a worthy sacrificefrightening, the monsters he keeps contained to the woods will be releasedforeign place, and the fabled kings he keeps hostage will never be returned—or so the stories gobest avoided. But when Red enters For Miv, the woodsmove would mean leaving her best friend, expecting nothing more than to be killed within the hourSharon, and she finds 'll do anything to prevent that the legends are lies. The wolf is She's not a monster—heworried about the dangers or that her Mum's a manstopped talking - to anyone.|isbn=0356516369
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=M G Leonard1398524085|title=TwitchHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Twitch is a boy who loves birdsCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. He keeps pigeons at homeHer children, and chickenssons Niall, Paul and even has swallows nesting in his bedroom! His time spent watching Ollie and helping birds is easy compared to that of his time in schoolher daughter, Etty. But things are about to change for Twitch in all aspects of his life as there worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is a dangerous bank robber on the runnot. Shortly afterwards, Etty and itGreg, find the body of Greg's possible that father, Duncan Ackerley, in the missing bank haul is hidden somewhere in Aves Wood, river. It was an easy assumption for the place where Twitch has his secret hide police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and that then committed suicide when he knows like couldn't stand the back of his hand! guilt. Can Twitch solve the mystery, The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and find the missing millions?|isbn=1406389374wonder about what really happened.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18388538041035906708|title=The Cursed GirlsDiva|author=Caro RamsayDaisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Megan Melvick's earliest memory is We tend to think of her fourth birthday: Maria Callas as Greek, but she followed her grandfather down was born to the pondGreek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to find that he'd hanged himself. Twenty years later Athens when she's back home again and this time the occasion is no less sadwas thirteen. She's there to say Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her final farewells father changed it to her sister, Melissa, who is dying of anorexia. As she dies, Melissa whispers 'sorryCallas' to Megan but what did she mean? There were lots of things, minor and major cruelties, for which Melissa might have been sorry - or was make it even a question? more manageable in the States. Was When she asking if Megan was sorry back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for sleeping with Melissa's husband, Jago, on their wedding day? The Melvicks might seem to have everything her voice - Ivan Melvick she was Lord Lieutenant of raised under the County and money was never in short supply - but there did seem to be Nazi occupation by a curse. In addition to Melissa's health problems, Megan was deaf mother who mercilessly exploited her and their mother, Beth, had left suddenly three years before. Would she come back made no secret of her preference for her elder daughter's funeral?sister, Jackie.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241400120Christopher Edge|title=The Girl Who Died|author=Ragnar Jonasson and Victoria CribbBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Una was not thriving Lucas and his friends are all booked in Reykjavik: it was some years since her beloved father had committed suicide without leaving any explanation and since then shefor a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'd given up her medical studies and retrained as a teacher. She was thirty years old All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and money was tight. many, many snacks! Her friendHowever, Saraas the movie starts, showed her they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an advert for a job in Skalar on the Langanes Peninsulaadventure they couldn't even imagine. There were only ten people in But as they lurch from one film genre to the village but a teacher was required for two children: a salary would be paid and accommodation provided. next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Una was Will they ever get back to the only applicant cinema, and the job meant that she could let her flat in Reykjavik and, hopefully, save some money over the winter which her contract covered.to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1846975719Rachel Greenlaw|title=For Any Other Truth (DCI Jim Daley)|author=Denzil MeyrickCompass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=CrimeTeens|summary=We learn that MI5 is having its problems with environmental terrorists supergluing themselves to awkward places''I can hear the song of the sea. But that's LondonThe call of the deep, isnthe answering beat in my heart.'t it? What's happening in Kinloch?
When Rosevear, a light aircraft crash lands at Machrie airportremote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, DCI Jim Daley is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and his colleagueany treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, Acting DI Brian Scottthey capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, head Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off for in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the airport straight awaysea. It soon becomes evident though that both occupants 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 plane were dead before take off. How could that be? The sort heart of tech which would make that possible isnthe smuggler't available s territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the paying publicones she holds most dear. And why have the man no identification on them - or even labels in their clothes?|isbn=0008664730
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{{Frontpage
|author=Richard BrookJames Sherwood Metts|title=Understanding Human Nature: A User's Guide to LifePlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=LifestyleConfident Readers|summary= I am Things have been a firm believer that sometimes we choose books, and sometimes books choose us. In my case, this is one of bit sticky for the latterEarthlings. Not so very long ago, if I had come across this book I'd AI and automation have skimmed itbeen proceeding apace, found some of it interesting, but it would not have often replacing jobs they'hit home' in the way re paid to do and other tasks that it does nowtook time to accomplish. I believe it came Just as they were beginning to get used to me not just because I was likely all this technological change and starting to give it a favourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag's u.s.p. is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomlythink of other, so there is a predisposition towards expecting new ways to like the bookspend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and, even if it doesn't always turn out that way'' ] – but also because along with it is a book I needed to read, right nowall the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=18004616821736128426
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B095CY7NBNMatthew Tree|title=Autumn Camp|author=Barry FowlerWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=It was Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be Brian's last camp. He'd founded the organisation some four years ago different from his father, a drunk and had done chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all the organisation since but he was leaving school failed miserably and the time who had come to hand the reins to someone elseendless crises of self confidence. The obvious person was Gary, who'd always been the fun element of the camps and Brian had said that on this camp, Gary should act as the leader and he'd just be there So Tim applied himself to observe. The problem with this was that Gary wasn't really an organiserhis studies, an administrator if you like. He was the entertainer, the person who basked in the spotlight and made things fun - so Brian stepped in and did the organising. He handed the camp over - and then took it back. And Gary determined to have cultivated his revenge. This should have been ''abilities rather than his'' campdaydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=194812467XA G Slatter|title=The Farm Shop|author=Devon Avery, Justine Avery and Ema TepicBriar Book of the Dead|rating=45|genre=For SharingFantasy|summary=Kirelle and her best friend Sam the cat decide '' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to go myself for a walkhowever long I can. Kirelle is dressed for This secret magic of my own, all weathers in her bright yellow wellies and Sam is perfectly turned out as ever in his smart grey fur coatmine, at last. As they walk I just want to the top of the hill, they see enjoy it for a big barn with a sign outsidewhile. It's a farm shop! But this is a farm shop with a difference: all the stallholders and customers are farmyard animals. There are sheep and ducks and cows, goats and chickens, and even some mice. Excited, Kirelle and Sam go shopping.'
What will 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 buy?have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=00084049251529900360|title=The Killing KindGhost Orchid|author=Jane CaseyJonathan Kellerman|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=Difficult clients It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were nothing new to barrister Ingrid Lewis but John Webster came as something only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of a surprisepsychologist only worked for a while. After allFinally, it was her cross-examination of the Robin, Delaware'victim' which saved him from a lengthy prison sentences partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. He'd been accused of stalking She knew that the woman but it didn't take long to establish involvement was something that - if anything - it was the other way aroundman she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. Soon Ingrid never seemed He was the heir to be free of John Webster an Italian shoe empire and then she came is married to see him as a threat an extremely rich man and was forced to remember that it's not the police officer at his trial had told her that this Italian. But which of them was the best chance they'd had to put Webster away for a long time: he was a very dangerous man.primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=00083955941529395224|title=Both Letting the Cat Out of Youthe Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Adele ParksSion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=You could be forgiven for thinking that Leigh Fletcher has it all: great husband and two gorgeous stepsons whom she adoresSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. ThenHis father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, one Monday, she went to particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and never came homewas convinced this was the job for him. MarkBefore long, Oli and Seb are shattered. Well, Mark and Seb are but Oli's sixteen and he was at the stage where he thinks boredom is his best lookLiverpool University. HeIt hadn's t - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a bit off with Leigh for a while but she put it down to him growing up and starting to become independentchild. SebIf anything, he's only twelve and Leigh's absence hits him hard. Then Daan Janssen, d wanted to be a wealthy Dutch businessman, reports his wife, Kai missing. She too has vanished without traceprofessional footballer.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=14736857450861541774|title=Unbreak Your HeartA Nye of Pheasants|author=Katie MarshSteve Burrows
|rating=4
|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 SimonDCI Domenic Jejeune's sonclose friend and former colleague, JakeDanny Maik, off his bike. He wasn't hurt but Jake has historytaken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. He has HLHS Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that's Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome for those of you who are not ''au fait'' he was facing a man armed with your medical acronymsa knife - and he killed a Ghurka. When Initially, he was born, the left side faced a charge of his heart hadn't developed properly and manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he needed open-heart surgery when might have planned to murder the man. Now he was a few days oldcould be facing the death penalty. So, Simon has every right Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to be over-protective particularly when someone isnhelp as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't looking where they're drivinghelp Danny at all.
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|author=Louie StowellAlexander McCall Smith|title=OtherlandThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary= Myra The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and Rohan are like Yin and Yang – Myra is loudoperating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, bright tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and hates ruleslook after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while Rohan . Katie is very politecoming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, serious and worries about the tiniest things. Their only connection? Being born and briefly dying so jumps at the same time at the same hospital on Midsummer's daychance to come home to Edinburgh. And sobegins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, every year their families get together bringing us to celebrate the two's birthday/deathday. But when Rohan's little sister Shilpa is taken by the fairy queenan Edinburgh we already love, they must journey thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the OtherlandIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a magical realm full of fairiesbusiness, vampiresor in match-making, dragonsbut Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and Gods. Itthere's going always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to be the worst night of their lives.lend a hand…|isbn=17880004631846976596
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=walker140811771741|title=The Coldest Case (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)InstaKnits for Baby|author=Martin WalkerMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeCrafts|summary=It was when he saw Elisabeth DaynesMelissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' work in the prehistory museum at Les Eyzies that chief gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of police Bruno Courreges had the idea which he thought might help his boss'long, chief cosy afternoons in front of detectives Jalipeau, known as J-J, to solve a case that had haunted him for thirty yearsthe fire' variety. The body of a young male was found in projects are divided by the woods but he was never identified time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and his killer never brought to justicemore than twenty hours. What if an artist could recreate All the face from the skull projects are attractive, modern and the resulting publicity be used to identify the young man? useable. JI perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-J calls the skull worthy projects'Oscarbut that' and has 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 justices me being picky.
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|author= Martha LeighDean Koontz|title= Invisible Ink: A Family MemoirThe Bad Weather Friend|rating= 4.5|genre= BiographyParanormal|summary= Benny is having a terrifically bad day. Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentricHe loses his job, he loses his fiancee, immediately recognisable upper middle class English familyand his house gets trashed. Her father is Oh, and someone has delivered a Cambridge donreally weird, forever clacking away on disturbing coffin-sized object to his typewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseauhome, his lifeand it's workpossible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. Her mother So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a concert pianist new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who practises has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for hours every daybeing a good person. Neither parent Spike is hugely interested in the practicalities going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of life. There is love in the house but also darker undercurrents that Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a child does not fully understand but knows is therewaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=18004603841662500491
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{{Frontpage
|author=Darren ShanAdam Stower|title=Archibald Lox Murray and the Slides of Bon Repell: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 2 of 3Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers|summary=SoMurray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. Having done But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the impossible catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. 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 turned up and unpicked the lock he'll have to the Forgotten Cryptdo…|isbn=0008561249}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0C47LV1PC|title=Fragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, from which is the Departed communicate with question should you make it? Or is the Mergequestion if you did, Archie now has would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no. ''gropFragility'' is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to think aboutemerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529431735|title=The Winter Visitor|author=James Henry|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. But before that, soirees He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. Soirees! Archie The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, much to Inezsaying that she's amusement, doesnill and hasn't even know what one of those islong to live. But he manages It's hard to come through the fancy party unscathedfeel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, even after an uncomfortable encounter with Kurtis, whose fledgling romance with Inez was crushed stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the first volume boot of this seriesa stolen Ford Sierra. |isbn=B093J9TF73 Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{Frontpage
|author= Adrian TchaikovskyAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title= Shards The Glorious Race of EarthMagical Beasts|rating= 4|genre= Science FictionConfident Readers|summary= Eighty years ago, Earth was destroyed, warped into Eli is a busy lad – by day an unrecognisable shape apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the moon-sized aliens known as evening a helper at the Architectsdessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Humanity Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is scattereda generation missing in the family. A few short years ago, constantly fleeing as world after world falls to the architectEli's reshaping. Then, just when they had parents were both lost to the human titular race on the run, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the Architects vanished. And so, world in the memories company of a magical beast. This has made the war fades, heroes are forgotten, and humanity begins race anathema to fracture and fight among themselves. Idris Telemmier, the pair – but when a man genetically engineered bad incident at the eatery leads to try and communicate with the Architectsa confession from gran, does not want Eli knows his only hope is to be remembered. Butdare to enter what he most hates, when he and with the sole aim the crew prize of magic at the end – the salvage ship he calls home discover what appears only thing to be recent Architect activity, suddenly he is thrust back into the spotlightpossibly save his gran. As he 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=15290518860571382231
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1848458428178763681X|title=Local Woman MissingKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Mary KubicaOrlando Murrin
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Eleven years ago, Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a man regularly came home residential cookery school in Belgravia. He didn't really want to his wife with lipstick marks on his collar but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of getting both men and lame excuses as women to why do what he was late - againwanted. His wife was in Paul ''somehow'' got the habit of going out for a run late impression that he'd be at night. It was the only time she school to assist Paul, who had for herself when she a broken arm, but it didn't have to look after her baby turn out that way. The teaching - but when she was out she would meet up with a man, grateful for and the unquestioning affection he gave herproblems - are all his own. The locality one thing he hadn't expected was stunned when Shelby Tebow disappeared, seemingly without a trace, leaving her husband for someone to look after her disabled babyturn up dead. Ten days laterUnfortunately, a local woman and her six-year-old daughter disappeared. Meredith Dickey he was a birth doula the person who discovered the body and she'd seemed everyone knows that the police consider that person to be under some strain for 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 herprime suspect.
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