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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008350388
|title=We Need to Talk About Money
|author=Otegha Uwagba
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...'' ''We Need to Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba
 
''0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a book by a woman.'' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021
Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. It was her mother who came first, with her father joining them later. The family was hard-working, principled and determined that their children would have the best education possible. There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a place at New College, Oxford.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17876318690008517061|title=The Rising TideDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Sam LloydStig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Lucy Locke's early Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life hadn't been easy but she'd built at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a good little uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and decent life her daughter Diana, as moving in the aftermath. She's now married to Daniel, who co-owns Locketogether would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-Povey Marine on Penleith Beach, grid and they live at Wild Ridge on Mortis Point relaxing life to move in with Billie, Lucy's daughter and Fin, Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the child future she had with Daniel. They have financial difficulties, some caused by Nick Povey, Daniel's partner wants for herself and so-called best friend. her daughter? Nick For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and Daniel have a history together from putting the future on the time they both spent in a children's home but it's difficult to think that Nick has Daniel's best interests at heart, particularly where Lucy, or money, is concernedback burner.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Hannah Peck1786482126|title=Kate on the CaseThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=34.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Meet Kate, although I got Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the impression shesite was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury'd rather be apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a Catherine – and one specific Catherine at thatdoorway. There was no skull. For Catherine Rodriguez is Kate's idolWas this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, and the author of our heroineDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's favourite possessiondifficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn''The Special Correspondent Manual''. Armed with a plucky fathert, that book, and her talking mouse called Rupert, she is all equipped to manage pregnant with his child as a train ride to result of the Arctic, to see her scientist mother for the first time in yonksone night they spent together some three months ago. HoweverHer condition will be obvious before long, this not least because Ruth is a train ride with a difference, for on board is a greedy-seeming harridan and her cat, a thief – and two glowing eyes, shining from the darkness in a blink-and-you'll-miss-them style. It's definitely a case for a new young investigative journalistprone to sudden bouts of sickness...|isbn=184812970X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Darren Shan0008551324|title=Archibald Lox and the Forgotten Crypt: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 1 of 3The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=The second trilogy in ShanIt's ''Merge'' saga opens with our hero, Archie, back in London in unusual for anyone from the world of Hardie family to approach the Bornpolice. It Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's not been easy, explaining prepared to his foster parents tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he's beenpromises, or slipping back into ordinary life is someone big and forgetting about Inez and his other friends in it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the Merge, but Archie has done remainder of his bestsentence and to get an early parole date.... well Not much to ask, except for visiting veteran locksmith Winston in Big Benis it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's clock tower even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and except for fiddling anyone who works with that sneaky master lock in Seven Dials every time he can sneak him is kept well awayfrom what's happening.|isbn=B093H8DPQZ
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=05713658840008405026|title=My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures A Stranger in Anxietythe Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Georgia PritchettJane Casey|rating=45|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary=Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a childIt's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was never found and the sort of life where if she had nothing investigation ground to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and far betweena halt. On a visit to a therapistNow, her mother, as an adultHelena, and her father are dead in their bed. when she was completely unable to speak Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about what was wrong with the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was suggested that she should write it down going to be an open-and ''My Mess -shut case is now a Bit of a Life: Adventures complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in AnxietyRosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent' is the result - or so we s boss, Una Burt) are given to believeless convinced.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alex Cotter0571379877|title=The House on the EdgeKellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Faith's family home Edward Jevons is teetering on the edge of a cliffworking-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, literallyRobert and Stanza. Is that crack in the garden getting bigger? Is the house starting to slope Robert's a little? And as the house seems to be falling apart, so is Faiththeatre director. He's family. Her dad has disappearedalso self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and her mum is struggling uses Edward to cope, barely leaving her bedrun errands for him. So that leaves Faith Edward has been in charge, taking care of her little brother Noah, taking care of her mum, feeding everyone, getting Noah to school, love with Stanza since their university days - and avoiding awkward questions from interfering teachers. Is her little brother okay? Why is he obsessed with what 's drunkenly confided how he claims is a ghost feels to Robert. Most men in the cellar? What should she do about the house? Can she find a way to raise enough money to fix it? WhatRobert's happened to her dad? Why did he disappear? Maybe position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he'll come back if she manages s not like most men: Edward is left to get funding for stumble upon the house? She carries the weight two of all these worries on her constantly, and she doesn't know how much longer the cliff will hold together, or how long she can keep on keeping onthem kissing in a dark passageway.|isbn=1788008626
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008269041Jo Callaghan|title=Risk of Harm|author=Lucie WhitehouseLeave No Trace|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=DCI Robin Lyons When a man is back in her native Birmingham after her less-than-comfortable departure from found crucified on the Met. She might have been reinstated but the whole episode left top of a nasty taste hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her mouth. She was now working for Detective Chief Superintendent Samir Jaffrey - then sidekick, the man who had broken her heart nearly twenty years beforeAI detective Lock. She and her fifteen-year-old daughter have moved out of her parentIt's home into their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a rented house but there's still second body found crucified a difficult situation few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with her brother Luke who has gone out a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of his way unwanted attention to make life difficult for Robin since she was a young childtheir AI Future Policing project. He's married Will they be able to Nataliesolve the case in time, now or will Kat find herself taken off the case and has , potentially, out of a young child but he's still got it in for Robin.career?|isbn=139851120X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17863323881399613073|title=The First Day of SpringMoral Injuries|author=Nancy TuckerChristie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Sometimes I wonder if I take my pleasures too sadly - Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and ''The First Day their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of Spring'' was one such occasiona century. The writing Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is superb and completely compellinga bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. The characterisation Laura is excellent a perfectionist and the plot grips you and won't let goa trauma doctor. So, what's Anjali is the problem? Well, free spirit of the problem is Chrissie, the main charactergroup and she becomes a GP. When we first meet her shethem they's just eight years old, small for her age re at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and she readily tells us that sheit's just killed someone - a two-year-old boygoing to end in tragedy. SheWe don's completely cold about what she's done with her main memory being that whilst she was killing - suffocating - her hands seized upt know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. There's a clue Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that Chrissie isn't completely responsible for her actions a little later in will impact the book: when will Steven come backthree friends. This time, she wonders? Hasnit't he been dead for long enough?s their teenage children who are involved.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Catherine Steadman0241636604|title=The Disappearing ActTrading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersAutobiography|summary= British actress Mia Eliot is on the cusp If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of successsomeone like Gary Stevenson. Great success. If A hoodie and jeans replaces the rumours are true, award season pin-stripe suit and his background is going to treat her wellthe East End, acknowledging her for her latestwhere he was familiar with violence, critically acclaimed productionpoverty and injustice. She's going places There was no posh public school on his CV - but so, unfortunately, he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is her partner. And the places bright - extremely bright - and he's going take him towards lies, deceit and has a pretty young thing in the form facility with numbers which most of his new co-starus can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It's was his ability at what was, essentially, a good time for Mia to escapecard game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, and pilot season in LA provides just the excusethis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|isbn=1471189783
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Christophe Medler1035021803|title=Madrigal: A Closely Guarded SecretThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary= Set against It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the backdrop English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of the English Civil Wara request for help from her beloved aunt, a secret plan (code-named Madrigal) is discovered by Sir Robert Douse in the summer of 1642Carole. As a loyal servant of the King Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and Head of the Secret Servicecircumstances seem suspicious, it is Robert's duty to uncover say the details of least. Arthur was the plan and follow reason why Freya had not been back to the clues village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to uncover one of be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the most guarded secrets split, she worked in history—especially since a cafe, met and married James (on the plot could affect rebound from the Kinglove of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.|isbn=B095HY8SXQ
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Tasha SuriAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=The Jasmine ThroneAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=45|genre=FantasyScience Fiction|summary= On ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the night shape of her sacred burning, Princess Malini defies her brother and refuses to step on things to the pyrecome. She '' I've heard it said that 'technology' is immediately sent what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to be imprisoned on me but I'm left with the Hirana: an ancient temple feeling that was once filled with a community of people who got powers it's all getting away from the mysterious deathless watersme. But now the temple Some of it is nothing more than an overgrown, decaying ruin- frankly - quite frightening. One day Of course, Malini witnesses a girl kill I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone with magicwho knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. Instead of reporting her for such I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a gruesome crime, Malini claims that the girl saved her from an attacker and begs for the girl to become her own personal maidservantway I could understand.|isbn=0356515648
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B088YWF5BCSunny Singh|title=The Lies We Tell|author=Jane CorryHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Sarah Wallace said that she grew up on The Hotel Arcadia is a council estate luxury hotel in Kent and an unnamed city that she had two brothers and two sisters. It seemed to have has suddenly been violently taken over by a loving, stable familyterrorist group. When we first meet herHiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, she can't sleep because her sonkilling everyone on site, Freddiethere is Sam, who's nearly sixteena wartime photographer and Abhi, hasn't come home by the time he sort of half-promised he'd be in byhotel manager. Her husband, Tom, is fast asleep: they're moving house As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the morning but hotel, he's still going forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be going to work and he needs his sleep. He wakes, thoughcowed by events, when Freddie does come in and overhears him tell his mother that hekeeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's killed someone.}}{{Frontpage|author=Joseph Knox|title=True Crime Story|rating=4|genre=Thrillers|summary= Joseph Knox, known for his series surrounding Detective Aidan Waits, has created a new genre with his latest novel, "True Crime Story". The story follows the disappearance of Zoe Nolan from happened through her university halls of residencephotography. Split into four parts, the reader is taken through Although they only ever talk over the life and disappearance of Zoe through the eyes of her twin sister, other family, friends and professionalsphone, such their friendship grows as the police. The various accounts Abhi tries to help the reader get her keep safe and they both wait to know Zoe, or at least the Zoe she presented to others. However, the twists and turns at the end of each chapter leave you shocked, confused and unsure of what is true or fabricated. Whose accounts can we trust?|isbn=0857527703}}{{Frontpage|author=Justine Avery and Naday Meldova|title=No, No, No!|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=They say the best picture books see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by 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 outsideterrorists.|isbn=1638820457086154742X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Monica Connell1529153298|title=Against a Peacock SkyThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=TravelGeneral Fiction|summary= Monica Connell went to Nepal to do the fieldwork for her PhIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister.D (A woman? I mean, honestly. in social anthropology. I think it is important to know that. ) She went on a grant-supported trip's not what's worrying Miv's family, with a relatively specific objectivethough. Women have been disappearing. She wasn Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't a hippy wanderer looking for Shangri-lasound quite so frightening. She wasn Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South't a mere tourist passing through. She went with When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a fundamental aim of learning about these people and how they livedfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. She also went For Miv, presumably, with the academic discipline of how to find these things out, how to organise them in move would mean leaving her mindbest friend, how to "understand" them in the context of her own paradigmsSharon, and how she'll do anything to keep enough notes and files and photos to help prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her create some greater sense of the experience after the event. Fortunately, she also went with a sense of openMum's stopped talking -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 upanyone.|isbn=1780600429
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=14091816691398524085|title=The MaidensHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Alex MichaelidesNicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Mariana Charlotte Salter was convinced that Professor Edward Fosca had committed two murders and looked likely to get away with them bothexpected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. She needed to think carefully about what she knew Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and decide how she should proceedher daughter, Etty. Everything are all worried but - or so she thought strangely - had begun with the death of Tara Hampton on the Paradise nature reserve in Cambridgeher husband, Alec, is not. She'd been brutally stabbed Shortly afterwards, Etty and MarianaGreg, find the body of Greg's niecefather, ZoeDuncan Ackerley, had telephoned her in distressthe river. Tara It was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had been her best friend murdered Charlie and she was struggling to cope. Mariana wasnthen committed suicide when he couldn't ''entirely'' happy about having to go to Cambridge, but she caught stand the first fast train from King's Crossguilt. Mariana and Zoe were close and had been made all the more so by the death of MarianaThe Salter children are not convinced but there's husband, Sebastian, in a swimming accident little else they can do but get on Naxos some fourteen months earlier. Zoe had been with their surrogate daughter after the death of Zoe's mother lives and Mariana's sister, Elizawonder about what really happened.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Maisie Chan1035906708|title=Danny Chung Does Not Do MathsDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Danny is eleven years oldWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and what he really, really loves only moved to do is drawAthens when she was thirteen. He creates fantastical comics, whilst his best friend Ravi adds the words. DannyHer original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas's dad, however, wants Danny to concentrate on his maths, and forget about the drawing, because he says nobody can make a living from drawing! At least Danny has his own room, where he can draw it more manageable in secret and in peacethe States. But then one day his parents tell him they have When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a surprise for him, and this surprise turns out to be his grandmother mother who has come over from China to live with them, mercilessly exploited her and who will not only be sharing Danny's bedroom but she will also be sleeping on the top bunk made no secret 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 preference for her around the town. Poor Danny, stuck on a maths projectelder sister, frustrated with his bedroom situation, and then he even has a falling out with Ravi..Jackie.how on earth will things ever get better?!|isbn=180078001X
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{{Frontpage
|author=Terry MilesChristopher Edge|title=RabbitsBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=4.5|genre=Science FictionConfident Readers|summary=Welcome to the world of The Game. Or should that be the game, Lucas and his friends are all booked in for while it ought to be capitalised to high heavena movie marathon at their local cinema, it never leaves lower case throughout this book. It's also called Rabbits, although only as a slangy term for it – as far as anyone knows, it place that has no official title, no official source, no hard and fast structure, and to the average person no obvious entry point. A bit like the game nickname of life then'The Black Hole'. Yes All big movie fans, this is the game of life for a certain tribe of people – the fan they're looking forward to lots of the conspiracyexciting films, the computer game, the hack from the darkest of webs. People like our hero, K, named like that in the least Kafkaesque manner possible. K and his bezzies are trying to be historians of the gamemany, and have studied amongst many things the most unique of high score boardssnacks! However, for as the lists of who has successfully won the game are in the most peculiar placesmovie starts, and are still they very short. However quickly realise that something about this time it's new film format is very different. This time the game seems the most dangerous, nay lethal, the most broken itand they are swept up into an adventure they couldn's ever been – morally and otherwiset even imagine. Unfortunately for K But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, in trying to sort can they figure out what the game on earth is doing, if it's even being played, and how his loved ones might be kept safe, he is only going on? Will they ever get back to find out that the line between observing and learning about the gamecinema, and playing it, is a very thin one indeed...to their real lives?|isbn=15290169321839942738
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{{Frontpage
|author=C J CareyRachel Greenlaw|title=WidowlandCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=General FictionTeens|summary=It's April 1953, and Adolf Hitler's schedule includes going to Moscow to attend I can hear the state funeral song of Joseph Stalin then within weeks coming to London, parading around a bit, and watching over the sanctioned return to sea. The call of the throne of Edward VIII with his wifedeep, Queen Wallisthe answering beat in my heart. For yes, Britain caved in the lead-up to the World War Two that certainly didn't happen as we know it' Rosevear, a remote and we are now a protectorate – wellpartially forgotten island, we share enough of survives on luring ships into the same blood as the Germanic peoples on ''rocks and plundering the mainland''wrecks. But this is most certainly a different BritainMira, for Nazi-styled phrenologylike her mother before her, and ideas is one of female purpose, has put all of that gender into a caste system, ranging from high-brow office bigwigs the seven who swim out to survey the drudges, ruins – rescuing any survivors and beyond those, right on down any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the childlesswrecking, they capture the husbandless island's leader and the widowsMira's father. Female literacy Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is actively discouraged. And in this puritanical existence, our heroine, Rose Ransom, as charming as he is employed secretive and with the task of bowdlerising classical literature only coordinates to take all encouragement for female emancipation out guide her, she sets off in search of it – after all, not every book can be banned, and not every story excised immediately from British civilisation, and so they just get a hefty tweak towards family secret that lies buried deep in the party line before they're stamped ready for reprintsea. That is With only nine days to unearth what might save her jobfather, at least, until as her journey takes her from the first emerging signs watched streets of female protest come foreign islands to lightthe heart of the smuggler's territory, with their potential Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to spoil Hitler's visitsave the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=152941198X0008664730
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{{Frontpage
|author=Louise BeechJames Sherwood Metts|title=This Is How We Are HumanPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary=Veronica is Things have been a devoted single mother to her sonbit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, Sebastian - but she canoften replacing jobs they't give him everything he wants. Sebastian has decided re paid to do and other tasks that it's took time for him to have sexaccomplish. But Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an autistic 20 year-oldawful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and, that's easier said than done. And along with it's starting to cause them both problems, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily. |isbn=19131937131736128426
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B093VPBL5LMatthew Tree|title=Cape Henry House|author=Jolly Walker BittickWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Meet Bosner, or, Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to give him be different from his full titlefather, Petty Officer Third Class Bosner. We never really find out if he has a first name: there's merely a hint that he drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had the nickname 'Secretary' at one pointendless crises of self confidence. He's simply Bosner So Tim applied himself to one and all. When we first encounter him he's exploring his memories of 2008 when he was a greaser on helicopters (or helosstudies, as they were called) at a naval establishment. The hours could be long cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and he was often working nights set himself high but at the age of twenty-one, there was always a way to work some fun (think drinking and eating) into his dayachievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|author=Hannah WhittenA G Slatter|title=For The Briar Book of the WolfDead
|rating=5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=In Red'' There's familya part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, the first daughter becomes queenall mine, and the second daughter becomes at last. I just want to enjoy it for a sacrificewhile. To Red's misfortune' Within a remote mountain pass, she is far away from the second daughter. Sent alone into world, lies Silverton; a town under the woods with nothing but protection of the cape on her backBriar's, Red knows what to expect: within a family of witches who protect the woods is a wolf, town and he is the one who will decide wider world from the fate of their kingdomDarklands. If Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is not a worthy sacrifice, the monsters he keeps contained first non-witch to the woods will be releasedborn 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 fabled kings he keeps hostage will never be returned—or so Briar Witch, the stories gotown's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. But when Red enters As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the woods, expecting nothing more than rare ability to be killed within communicate with the hourdead, she finds that putting her at the legends are liesheart of a maelstrom of chaos. The wolf 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 not a monster—he's a manunder threat.|isbn=03565163691803364548
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=M G Leonard1529900360|title=TwitchThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=54|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Twitch is a boy who loves birds. He keeps pigeons at home, It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and chickenseven after Alex recovered, and even has swallows nesting in Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his bedroom! help on difficult cases. His time spent watching assertions that there were only open-and helping birds is easy compared to that -shut cases which didn't need the help of his time in schoola psychologist only worked for a while. But things are about to change for Twitch in all aspects of his life as there is a dangerous bank robber on the runFinally, and itwas Robin, Delaware's possible partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the missing bank haul is hidden somewhere involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in Aves Wood, the place where Twitch has his secret hide and that he knows like the back swimming pool of his hand! a remote property in Bel Air. Can Twitch solve He was the mystery, heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and find it's not the missing millionsItalian. But which of them was the primary target?|isbn=1406389374
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18388538041529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Cursed GirlsSecret Life of a Vet|author=Caro RamsaySion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Megan MelvickSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn's earliest memory is of her fourth birthday: she followed her grandfather down t want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the pond, only to find strain that hebeing on-call put on his father'd hanged himselfs life. Twenty years later she's back home again When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this time was the occasion is no less sadjob for him. She's there to say her final farewells to her sisterBefore long, Melissa, who is dying of anorexiahe was at Liverpool University. As she dies, Melissa whispers It hadn'sorry' to Megan but what did she mean? There were lots of things, minor and major cruelties, for which Melissa might have t - as with so many students - been sorry - or his dream since he was it even a question? child. Was she asking if Megan was sorry for sleeping with MelissaIf anything, he's husband, Jago, on their wedding day? The Melvicks might seem to have everything - Ivan Melvick was Lord Lieutenant of the County and money was never in short supply - but there did seem d wanted to be a curseprofessional footballer. In addition to Melissa's health problems, Megan was deaf and their mother, Beth, had left suddenly three years before. Would she come back for her elder daughter's funeral?
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=02414001200861541774|title=The Girl Who DiedA Nye of Pheasants|author=Ragnar Jonasson and Victoria CribbSteve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Una DCI Domenic Jejeune's 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 not thriving involved in Reykjavik: it a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was some years since her beloved father had committed suicide without leaving facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. Initially, he faced a 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 death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any explanation interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and since then shewouldn'd given up her medical studies t help Danny at all.}}{{Frontpage|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and retrained operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a teachermore personal, tailored service. She was thirty years old Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and money was tight. Her friendlook after the business, Sara, showed her an advert as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a job in Skalar on the Langanes Peninsulawhile. There were only ten people in the village but Katie is coming out of a teacher was required for two children: break up with a salary would be paid bad boyfriend, and accommodation providedso jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. Una was And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the only applicant Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and the job meant that she could let there's always her flat in Reykjavik very helpful (andrather handsome) neighbour, hopefullyWilliam, save some money over the winter which her contract covered.to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18469757190811771741|title=For Any Other Truth (DCI Jim Daley)InstaKnits for Baby|author=Denzil MeyrickMelissa Leapman|rating=3.54|genre=CrimeCrafts|summary=We learn that MI5 is having its problems with environmental terrorists supergluing themselves Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to awkward placesblankets. But thatSome will be quick knits - others are of the 's Londonlong, isncosy afternoons in front of the fire't it? variety. WhatThe projects are divided by the time they's happening in Kinloch? When a light aircraft crash lands at Machrie airportll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, DCI Jim Daley ten to twenty hours and his colleague, Acting DI Brian Scott, head off for the airport straight awaymore than twenty hours. It soon becomes evident though that both occupants of All the plane were dead before take offprojects are attractive, modern and useable. How could that be? The sort of tech which would make I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that possible isn't available to the paying publics me being picky. And why have the man no identification on them - or even labels in their clothes?
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{{Frontpage
|author=Richard BrookDean Koontz|title=Understanding Human Nature: A User's Guide to LifeThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=LifestyleParanormal|summary= I am Benny is having a firm believer that sometimes we choose booksterrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and sometimes books choose ushis house gets trashed. In my caseOh, this is one of the latter. Not so very long agoand someone has delivered a really weird, if I had come across this book I'd have skimmed itdisturbing coffin-sized object to his home, found some of and it interesting, but it would not have 'hit home' in s possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the way thing that it does nowhas trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. I believe it came to me not just because I was likely to give it He is a favourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag's unice person.s.p A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomlya new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, so there who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a predisposition towards expecting good person. Spike is going to like the booktake care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, even if it doesnhe, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny't always turn s wild adventure) can figure out that way'' ] – but also because it is a book I needed to read, right nowwho exactly they are.|isbn=18004616821662500491
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B095CY7NBNAdam Stower|title=Autumn Camp|author=Barry FowlerMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers |summary=It was Murray is supposed to be Brian's last camp. He'd founded the organisation some four years ago and had done all the organisation since but he was leaving school a humble, tidy and the time had come to hand the reins to someone else. The obvious person was Garyfriendly cat, one who'd always been the fun element of the camps is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and Brian had said that on this camp, Gary should act as well, whatever takes his fancy next of the leader and two. But he'd just be there to observe. The problem with this was that Gary wasns a bad magician't really an organisers cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, an administrator if you like. He was and the entertainercatflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the person who basked in the spotlight and made things fun - so Brian stepped in regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and did the organisingwhiffs. He handed the camp over - and then took This time round it back. And Gary determined drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to have his revenge. This should have been be honest, but he's turned up and he'his'' camp.ll have to do…|isbn=0008561249
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=194812467XB0C47LV1PC|title=The Farm ShopFragility|author=Devon Avery, Justine Avery and Ema TepicMosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingLiterary Fiction|summary=Kirelle and her best friend Sam the cat decide to go for Can you make a walk. Kirelle ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is dressed for all weathers in her bright yellow wellies and Sam the question should you make it? Or is perfectly turned out as ever in his smart grey fur coat. As they walk to the top of the hillquestion if you did, they see a big barn with a sign outside. It's a farm shop! But this would it land? The catch is a farm shop with a difference: all that the stallholders and customers are farmyard animalsanswer for both could well be... There are sheep and ducks and cows, goats and chickens, and even some mice. Excited, Kirelle and Sam go shoppingno.
What will they buy?''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=00084049251529431735|title=The Killing KindWinter Visitor|author=Jane CaseyJames Henry|rating=54|genre=Crime|summary=It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and hasn't long to live. It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?}}{{Frontpage|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the family. A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of a magical beast. This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231}}{{Frontpage|isbn=178763681X|title=Knife Skills for Beginners|author=Orlando Murrin|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Difficult clients were nothing new Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. He didn't really want to barrister Ingrid Lewis but John Webster came as something celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of a surprisegetting both men and women to do what he wanted. After all, it was her cross-examination of the Paul ''somehow'victim' which saved him from a lengthy prison sentence. Hegot the impression that he'd been accused of stalking be at the woman school to assist Paul, who had a broken arm, but it didn't take long to establish turn out that way. The teaching - if anything and the problems - it are all his own. The one thing he hadn't expected was the other way aroundfor someone to turn up dead. Soon Ingrid never seemed to be free of John Webster and then she came to see him as a threat Unfortunately, he was the person who discovered the body and was forced to remember everyone knows that the police officer at his trial had told her consider that this was person to be the best chance they'd had to put Webster away for a long time: he was a very dangerous manprime suspect.
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