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{{Frontpage
|isbn=152915118X0008517061|title=Pineapple StreetDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Jenny JacksonStig Abell|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: SashaFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're StocktonsJake Johnson, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted has settled into the tribehis rustic life at Little Sky. The problem's exacerbated when There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the clan matriarchfuture of his life with his vet girlfriend, TildaLivia and her daughter Diana, asks Cord as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and Sasha if they'd like relaxing life to move into in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the Pineapple Street property. Tilda future she wants for herself and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so away, which they own. her daughter? They won't need any of For the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight moment they’re enjoying life in. Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley present and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'putting the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'future on the GD'back burner.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00085512781786482126|title=Blood Runs Cold The Janus Stone (D S Max CraigieDr Ruth Galloway)|author=Neil LancasterElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Affi Smith Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was snatched from going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bottom bones of Fyrish, where she'd been doing her traininga child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. She'd been Was this a bit of a wayward teenager until she discovered athletics - and it now looks as though she could be heading for the national squadritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. ThatIt's quite an achievement for someone difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with her background: you see, Affo came to Scotland from Albania his child as Afrodita Dushku at the age of twelve. She was rescued when she was carrying a kilo result of drugs and the one night they spent together some three years later she's happy with her foster familymonths ago. There's just one cloud on her horizon: her little sisterHer condition will be obvious before long, Melodi not least because Ruth is in a children's home in Tirana - and anyone could get prone to hersudden bouts of sickness.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Emily Tesh0008551324|title=Some Desperate GloryThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Science FictionCrime|summary=It''While Earths unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's children live, prepared to tell the enemy shall fear us'' Following police where the destruction body of the Eartha missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, amongst a rare number of survivorshe promises, Kyr has been raised on Gaea Station – is someone big and it will be worth the home of police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the last scraps remainder of humanity – his sentence and trained relentlessly to avenge her people and the world that should have been hersget an early parole date. All her life Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she has been conditioned 's even prepared to fall in line, to fulfil her duty do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and ensure that humanity perseveresanyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|isbn=0356521834
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=08615440560008405026|title=Twin TruthsA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jacqueline SutherlandJane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Belle and DavidIt's twin daughters are just coming sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to the end of their first term at universitya halt. Kit's been at Bristol Now, her mother, Helena, and Jess's her father are dead in Exetertheir bed. ItInitially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's not only something about the first time they've been away from their parents for any length positioning of time - but they've also been apart from each otherthe bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Belle can't wait What looked as though it was going to have them all to herself for be an open-and-shut case is now a whilecomplex double murder. Then Kit rings up - can she bring her boyfriend home with her? Belle would prefer Kerrigan is convinced that he didn't come but doesn't want to upset Kit. Ivothe explanation lies in Rosalie's apparently 'older'disappearance: heothers (such as Derwent's twenty-four to Kit's eighteen but Belle figures that she can cope with that. And they'll be sharing a bedroomboss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17856334570571379877|title=Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric CarThe Kellerby Code|author=Clive WilkinsonJonny Sweet|rating=3.5|genre=TravelCrime|summary=Clive Wilkinson has Edward Jevons is a history of travelling by unconventional means working-class young man, obsessed with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageousupper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. In fact, it should be Robert's a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wifetheatre director. He's also self-obsessed, Joandemanding, shouldn't it?}}{{Frontpage|author=Frederic Seager|title= Jesus, the Man handsome and entitled and the Myth: A Jewish Reading of the New Testament|rating=4uses Edward to run errands for him.5|genre= Spirituality and Religion|summary= I was brought up Edward has been in a family where religion played little or no part. Culturally Irish Catholic on one side love with Stanza since their university days - and Welsh Methodist on the other, nobody really discussed religion and the adults around me ranged from lapsed to agnostic he's drunkenly confided how he feels to atheistRobert. Other than the odd church wedding or baptism or the school nativity play, I didn Most men in Robert't think too much about faith s position would stay away from Stanza or what people did or didntell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he't believes not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.|isbn=B092BWWG9Y
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0571370977Jo Callaghan|title=The Lock-Up|author=John BanvilleLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=It's six months since When a man is found crucified on the dramatic events which we read about top of a hill in [[April in Spain by John Banville|April in Spain]] and Dr Quirke is now back in Dublin and living (if somewhat uneasily) with his daughterNuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, Phoebe. The worst of his grief is over but he irrationally blames DI St John Strafford for what happened and this has made the already strained relationship between them more difficultAI detective Lock. TheyIt're brought s their first live case together by Chief Inspector Hackett , having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when the there is a second body of found crucified a young, Jewish scholar, Rosa Jacobsfew days later, Kat is found in suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lock-uplot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. At firstWill they be able to solve the case in time, it looked as though she'd gassed or will Kat find herself but Quirke is convinced that it was murder rather than suicide.taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career?|isbn=139851120X
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Julia Bartz1399613073|title=The Writing RetreatMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary= Roza Vallo. Anyone in Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the world first day of publishing knows the namemedical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Writers want Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be her, agents want to represent hera cardiothoracic surgeon. She's something of Laura is a perfectionist and a legend with an impressive, if compact, back catalogue trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of works that started with her breakthrough novel, published when the group and she was barely out of childhoodbecomes a GP. Alex, When we first meet them they're at a writerdrug and alcohol-slash-editor, is more than a little obsessed with Roza, fuelled party and is stunned when, following a series of unexpected events, she is invited it's going to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be part of her month-long writersan eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, it' retreats their teenage children who are involved.|isbn=0861544439
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Patrick Ness and Tea Bendix0241636604|title=Different for BoysThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens Autobiography|summary=Ant is If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in Year Eleven at quite a standard schoolyour mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and is surprised to find his geography class (within which it seems absolutely nothing about geography background is ever learnt) has been restructuredthe East End, so his desk is one of four where he was familiar with both his best buddy from the football teamviolence, poverty and two other old muckers – in fact they all go back to primary school days togetherinjustice. As they're all fired up, straining at the leash only a singleThere was no posh public school on his CV -sex school can form, but he had been to the talk in class and out often turns to sexLondon School of Economics. Which Stevenson is confusing for Ant, as bright - extremely bright - and he doesn't know what his score is, where his achievements in that regard liehas a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He's had a casual relationship, a secret one, for several months now, and so has effectively progressed up the ladder headed by 'experienced', but whether also realised that's set in stone, he can't most rich people expect poor people to be surestupid. And that's mostly because of who he's been having the relationship and the sex It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship withCitibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.|isbn=1529509491
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1035021803|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=M R CareyC L Miller|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Infinity GateAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary= I'm annoyingly picky when it comes 'Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to science fictioncome. Not because '' I've heard itsaid that 'technology' is what happens after you's re eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a genre I dislike – nothing few decades of the sorttechnology in my lifetime. My standards are high precisely because it I've kept up reasonably well with what's a hard genre advantageous to get right – and when itme but I's bad, m left with the feeling that it's often terribleall getting away from me. But the premise Some of Infinity Gate had me hookedit is - frankly - quite frightening. A concept this intriguing felt like a high-stakes gamble: if it was done well Of course, itI 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'd be fantasticre talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. So this is where I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I sum up that premisecould understand.|isbn=0356518043
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1398509582Sunny Singh|title=The Favour|author=Nicci FrenchHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeThrillers |summary=It was 2 amThe 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, there is Sam, not long after A levelsa wartime photographer and Abhi, when the car crash happenedhotel manager. It would cause problems As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for Liam Birch but then no one could really understand why the residents who are still alive in the hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and Jude Winter were together. She was utterly driven by keeps on venturing out of her determination room to go try to medical schoolcapture what's happened through her photography. Liam was Although they only ever talk over the reverse. He just acted ''phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if life just rolled him over and carried him along''. A bit of weed here, a few drinks there: the legal effects of they will be rescued before they are discovered by the car crash really didn't worry him at all. The relationship broke up soon after that - or rather, Liam simply didn't see Jude any moreterrorists.|isbn=086154742X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=08570517411529153298|title=The Sins List of Our Fathers: A Rebecka Martinsson InvestigationSuspicious Things|author= Asa Larsson and Frank Perry (Translator)Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=Lars Pohjanen has only a few weeks to live but heIt's determined that Rebecka Martinsson 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is going to investigate the case of a body found in a freezer at the home of a deceased alcoholicPrime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. The problem is that the case has long passed the statute of limitationsWomen have been disappearing. Raimo Koskela Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared without a trace in 1962' doesn't sound quite so frightening. He was the Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father of Olympic boxing champion Borje Strom. Rebecka wants nothing to do with a fifty-year-old case on which she can take no action: move the problem is that this is a dying manfamily 'Down South's wish. The situation changes when When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a post-mortem establishes that frightening, foreign place, best avoided. Henry PekkariFor Miv, the dead alcoholicmove would mean leaving her best friend, was also murderedSharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. Is there a connection between She's not worried about the two deaths?dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Robert Dugoni1398524085|title=Her Deadly GameHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary= Patrick Duggan & Associates has been the lifeCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's work fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Patsy Duggan – rather charmingly nicknamed Greg'The Irish Brawler' due to his reputation for no holds barred courtroom performances s father, Duncan Ackerley, in defence of his clientsthe river. Along with It was an indisputable talent easy assumption for the law, Patsy also has a gift for drinking himself police to oblivion make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and inevitably then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the latter was beginning to overshadow the formerguilt. Enter Keera Duggan, former competitive chess prodigy The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and proven Seattle Prosecutor who finds herself in the hideous position of asking her father for a job at the family firm because a romantic entanglement with a senior colleague, Miller Ambrose, had gone, rather spectacularly, southwonder about what really happened.|isbn=1662500181
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1035906708|title=Diva|author= Rob KeeleyDaisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. 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 mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.}}{{Frontpage|author=Christopher Edge|title= The Boy Who Disappeared and Other StoriesBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back with Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a return to place that has the short story format! nickname of 'The Boy Who Disappeared treats us Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they're looking forward to eleven lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new talesfilm format is very different, each and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as fun they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and to read as his previous offerings.their real lives?|isbn= B0BVW69N1G1839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Michael GrothausRachel Greenlaw|title=Beautiful Shining PeopleCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre= Literary FictionTeens|summary= ''But fearing something and having it come to pass are two different thingsI can hear the song of the sea. And I'm willing to bet most The call of what we fear will never happenthe deep, or we can take steps to change itthe answering beat in my heart.''
''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the question wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of identity the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and acceptanceany treasure that lies within. Of what it means But when the Council Watch lays a trap to be humanend the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Of what Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is real secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what is artificialmight save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and whether the development of technology is exciting or frighteningones she holds most dear.|isbn=191458564X0008664730
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09BLBP3P8James Sherwood Metts|title=Neville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic SeagerPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary=Received wisdom Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and simplified narrative automation have been proceeding apace, often lead replacing jobs they're paid to misconceptions about historydo and other tasks that took time to accomplish. One such is the scrubbing from the popular imagination Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of the early days of World War II from 1939-40other, known as the ''Phoney War''. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitlernew ways to spend time, war breaking out, and Churchill coming in to save the dayalong came an awful pandemic. Very little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections Life was pretty much shut down and yet, as Frederic Seager argues in this bookalong with it, it was of vital significance in how all the war played outmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0760378134Matthew Tree|title=The First-Time Gardener: Container Food GardeningWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8}}{{Frontpage|author=Pamela FarleyA G Slatter|title=The Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=Home and FamilyFantasy|summary=If you've ever thought how good it would be ' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to be able myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to pop out into the garden and pick some fruit and vegetables enjoy it for a meal – but realised that you wouldnwhile.''t know where to start Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, this is lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the book you need. ItBriar's comprehensive: you'll cover everything , a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from why you should grow your own foodthe Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, what you're going Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to growbe born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, what you'll grow it in (both containers her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and soil)potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, where youEllie'll put these containerss cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, how youthe town'll water s leader, and fertilise them Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and you finish centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the main part heart of the book with a handy section on troubleshootingmaelstrom of chaos. ThereReeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches's also a good glossary. Solegacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is it any good?under threat.|isbn=1803364548
}}
{{frontpageFrontpage|isbn=18033630021529900360|authortitle= Eric LaRoccaThe Ghost Orchid|titleauthor= The Trees Grew Because I Bled ThereJonathan Kellerman|rating= 54|genre= HorrorCrime|summary= Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Most horror fiction feature a ''Big Badhadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, whether Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that is there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of a home invader, psychologist only worked for a monster or a ghostwhile. Finally, it usually something tangible andwas Robin, Delaware's partner, by who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the end of involvement was something that the story, beatableman she loved needed. Eric LaRocca's '' The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like thatnext case did look simple, though. It is a collection of short stories more interested Two lovers were murdered in the horrors swimming pool of illness, grief and humiliationa remote property in Bel Air. Horrors that linger He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and are harder she is married to defeat than any ''Big Bad'an extremely rich man and it's not the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Amelia Estelle Dellos1529395224|title=Delilah RecoveredLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=FantasyAnimals and Wildlife|summary= We meet Dee at Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a point when her life isnGP and Rowlands didn't going as planned but things might, just might, be about want to look up. Out of workfollow in his footsteps, about to lose her flat, Dee is up for an accountant's job. But it's not to be. Dee is attacked by two men calling themselves witch hunters. She survives particularly when he considered the attack but not unscathed. Witch hunters? What strain that being on-call put on earth has that to do with Dee? Shehis father's just an ordinary woman, living an ordinary life. Slivers When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of memory of things that are not ordinary at all return to her doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and things will never be was convinced this was the samejob for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. If anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer.|isbn=B0BKYFDLLV
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00084049760861541774|title=The Close (DS Maeve Kerrigan)A Nye of Pheasants|author=Jane CaseySteve Burrows|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was because of Rula Jacques that DS Maeve Kerrigan DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and DI Josh Derwent were living together former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Jellicoe CloseSingapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy TruemanIf you're Maik was involved in a regular reader of the [[Jane Casey's Maeve Kerrigan series in Chronological Order|Maeve Kerrigan series]] you'll have read street brawl - he would later maintain that sentence twice he was facing a man armed with a knife - and wondered if it's a massive spoiler because there is he killed a delicious sexual chemistry between the two which seems very, very realGhurka. But (there's always Initially, he faced a 'charge of manslaughter but', isn't there?) Josh has a partner and evidence came to light that suggested that he dotes on her son, even if might have planned to murder the relationship with Melissa can man. Now he could be a little rockyfacing the death penalty. As for Maeve, sheDomenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn's just come out of an abusive relationship which has left her more than a little uncertaint help Danny at all.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Merryn GloverAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Hidden FiresPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=TravelGeneral Fiction|summary= It The Perfect Passion Company is always about a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the bookonline apps in providing a more personal, not tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the writerbusiness, but there are times when the author's hinterland as Ness is also the background planning to take a trip to Canada to the book get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so it is necessary jumps at the chance to understand that context, in order come home to appreciate the bookEdinburgh. Merryn Glover is of Australian parentageAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, was born in Kathmandubringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, grew up in thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Annapurna and Himalayan and now lives in Badenoch in ScotlandIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. I can think of Katie has no-one better experience in running a combination to give us a re-appraisal of Nan Shepherds work than the first Writer in Residence in the Cairngorms National Park. Merryn walksbusiness, not so much or in the shadow of Shepherdmatch-making, but Ness has full confidence in her spirit. I think the two would have gotten along famously.abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=18469757511846976596
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alice M Ross0811771741|title=The Nowhere ThiefInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrafts|summary=At last there is new stock in the impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and her mother run in Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a seaside towncollection of knits from toys to blankets. Elsbeth knows this because she has stolen itSome will be quick knits - others are of the 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. She also knows she should be free from worries about being found out, because she has The projects are divided by the ability time they'll take to leave this worldcomplete - less than five hours, and use an unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours five to enter other worldsten hours, where the sea levels are rising dramatically ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the buildings projects are generally empty of humans attractive, modern and ripe for plunderuseable. With eviction imminent, can Elsbeth nab anything to actually generate custom at the shop? Well yes, is the answer, I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but the fact a mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…|isbn=1839943769that's me being picky.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529504775Dean Koontz|title=The Toy Bus (The Repair Shop Stories)|author=Amy Sparkes and Katie HickeyBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingParanormal|summary=Elsie and her little brother David loved to go to the park and watch the red buses drive pastBenny is having a terrifically bad day. Elsie would race the buses along the side of the park but David couldn't - He loses his job, he'd been born with cerebral palsy loses his fiancee, and even just standing up was very difficulthis house gets trashed. One day Elsie spotted Oh, and someone has delivered a bus in the toy shop window which would help David really weird, disturbing coffin- sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was happy to use inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the coins from her money box very last person to pay deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it as cash was tight at home. Graduallyturns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, David learned who has been sent to stand up, use the bus help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for support, and walk behind itbeing a good person. Many decades laterSpike is going to take care of Benny, Elsie brought the busand will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, now damaged and rustedif he, to the Repair ShopBenny, hoping that the experts there could make it so that her grandchildren could play with itand Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1847941834Adam Stower|title=Atomic Habits|author=James ClearMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=LifestyleConfident Readers |summary=IMurray 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. But he's a bad magician've said this before but there are some books that you seek s cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, some books that you stumble across not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and some books that drop whiffs. This time round it drops them into your life because you really MUST read thema Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, liketo be honest, right now! but he's turned up and he'Atomic Habits'' is in the last category.ll have to do…|isbn=0008561249
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|authorisbn=Natasha FarrantB0C47LV1PC|title=The Rescue of RavenwoodFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=54|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=This story is another excellent adventure from the author of Can you make a ''Voyage of the SparrowhawkYo birthing person''. Ravenwood joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is an old housethe question if you did, in would it land? The catch is that the North of England, where Bea and Raffy have been living answer for most of their livesboth could well be.... no. They are part of a complex, extended family arrangement, as Bea is there with her Uncle Leo, and Raffy  ''Fragility'' is there with his mum, and they are living together set as a family. They have grown up swimming in the covecity of Portland, roaming through the treesOregon, completely at one with all of the nature around the house and loving every inch of the place. But now cautiously begins to emerge from the house is under threat, as Leo is under pressure from his other two brothers to sell restrictions imposed during the property to a developer as it's becoming more and more expensive to maintain. The children find themselves worrying not only about where they're going to live, but if they'll even be together, and if Ravenwood itself will be torn down.|isbn=0571348785covid pandemic
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|authorisbn=Nick Brooks1529431735|title=Promise BoysThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=When the principal (headmaster) of Urban Promise Prep school It's February 1991 and Essex is murderedbitingly cold, three boys find themselves called into which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the police station Costa del Sol as suspectsa wanted drug smuggler for a decade. Each, seemingly, The return has come about because he's had a grudge of some description against Principal Mooreletter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and each could have been there at the time of his murderhasn't long to live. But who killed himIt's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and why, and if any sent to a watery grave in the boot of the boys are innocent, will they be able a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to clear their nameshome?|isbn=1035003155
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|author=G K HollowayAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=In the Shadows The Glorious Race of CastlesMagical Beasts|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionConfident Readers|summary= We begin after Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the momentous battle wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in 1066 the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and on runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the day of William of Normandy's coronation as King of Englandfamily. William A few short years ago, Eli's position is not secure and parents were both lost to the titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the new king has many challenges. Imposing authority through company of a coronation is importantmagical beast. And William is right This has made the race anathema to worry. While the previous kingpair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, HaroldEli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, is dead and with the sole aim the likelihood prize of more pitched battles is over, magic at the rebels are stirring and much of end – the country does not wish only thing to recognise a new overlordpossibly save his gran.|isbn=18004224660571382231
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|isbn=0008506337178763681X|title=The Garnett GirlsKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Georgina MooreOrlando Murrin|rating=54|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard OChef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. He didn'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on t really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of getting both sidesmen and women to do what he wanted. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by MargoPaul ''s mother as somehow'an older man'. Her parents worried got the impression that Richardhe's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going d be at the school to Oxford and having assist Paul, who had a glittering careerbroken arm, but it didn't turn out that way. In the event, they eloped The teaching - and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wightproblems - are all his own. Margo did go to Oxford and went on The one thing he hadn't expected was for someone to become a well-respected journalistturn up dead. The couple had three children: RachelUnfortunately, Imogen and Sasha. Life he was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on person who discovered the Isle of Wight. Even then body and everyone knows that the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never police consider that person to be able to leave him in charge''. Then Richard left themthe prime suspect.
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