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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lauren St John0008517061|title=Finding WonderDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Roo's Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life has become almost impossibly difficultat Little Sky. Her mum died when she was young, and now she finds herself awoken in There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the middle future of the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his way to the corner shop to buy a lottery ticket. When asked what other family she haslife with his vet girlfriend, she can only name Livia and her auntdaughter Diana, Joni, who she knows her dad didn't think very highly as moving in together would mean a lot of. But she has no one else, compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and so off she goes relaxing life to live move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her unreliable aunt. Things continue to get worse reservations about whether or not this is the future she wants for Roo, as when she herself and Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, it breaks down her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the middle of nowhere present and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!|isbn=0571376169putting the future on the back burner.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=14483097431786482126|title=The Devil Janus Stone (DCI Christine CaplanDr Ruth Galloway)|author=Caro RamsayElly Griffiths|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=In Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the village of Cronchie on site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the West coast of Scotland, five members bones of a wealthy family are found murderedchild beneath a doorway. The only item missing from the home is the Devil Stone: myth says that if the stone is removed from Otterburn HouseThere was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, death will followDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. The only suspects are known Satanists It's difficult as Ruth knows, but in many waysNelson doesn't, that's an easy conclusion given that two she is pregnant with his child as a result of them 'discovered' the bodyone night they spent together some three months ago. The Senior Investigating Office is DCI Bob Oswald but when he disappears Her condition will be obvious before long, DCI Christine Caplan not least because Ruth is pulled in prone to 'shadow' himsudden bouts of sickness.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Kay Chronister0008551324|title= Desert CreaturesThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating= 4.5|genre= Dystopian FictionCrime|summary= With It's 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 prepared to tell the police where the body of a world that missing person is becoming increasingly inhospitable buried and who was responsible for humanityher death. This person, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrillhe promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. Whether it And what he wants is a robotic takeover, a world devoid to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of water or a nuclear holocausthis sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she'Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of posts even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded -apocalyptic fiction make certain that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. It DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is a shocking novel that still manages to find hopekept well away from what's happening.|isbn=1803364998
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Christopher Fowler0008405026|title=Word MonkeyA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary= It's the first of August in the middle of a cool wet sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer in East Anglianight. I decided not to swim at She was never found and the pool in favour of going investigation ground to my beach huta halt. The weather closed inNow, her mother, rain arrivedHelena, and I decided not to do her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that eithermakes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. When I finished reading this book, I realised What looked as though it was because (a) I wanted going to finish reading this book be an open-and (b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shack-shut case is now a complex double murder. No spoiler alerts, Kerrigan is convinced that the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler explanation lies in Rosalie'wass disappearance: others (such as Derwent' – s boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379877|title=The Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=Edward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosisStanza. There is something very strange about being made to laugh by Robert's a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dyingtheatre director. He's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and you know he actually is at that point, because 's drunkenly confided how he doesfeels to Robert. He didMost men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.|isbn=0857529625
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529077699Jo Callaghan|title=The Raging Storm (Two Rivers)|author=Ann CleevesLeave No Trace|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=''It's all bloody peculiar, isn't it, Sir?'' Well yes, it When a man is. Jem Rosco blew into found crucified on the local pub one evening in the middle top of an autumn gale, stayed for about a month and then turned up, naked and dead, hill in a small boatNuneaton, anchored in Scully Cove close DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the village of Greystonecase alongside her sidekick, in Devonthe AI detective Lock. Rosco had the status of a national treasure: a renowned adventurerIt's their first live case together, round the world sailor and all round ''celebrity''having previously been very successful with several cold cases. I ''nearly'' said 'all-round good egg' but as we'll find outBut when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, he could be more than Kat is suddenly struggling with a little bit close with money potential serial killer and his background isn't exactly an open booka very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Where did he get Will they be able to solve the money for his first boat? How did he finance case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the tripcase and, potentially, out of a career?|isbn=139851120X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0CC9W7GLR1399613073|title=On the Beach: The Winter VisitorMoral Injuries|author=Chris Green and Jenny FiondaChristie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingThrillers|summary=Kit and Teal were just beginning to wonder whether it was better to be at home, bored but warmOlivia, or frozen cold Laura and building sand sculptures Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a snowy beach quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be a large slab of silvery ice drifted onto the shorelinecardiothoracic surgeon. On top of the ice was Laura is a perfectionist and a polar beartrauma doctor. As Anjali is the ice bumped onto the sand, free spirit of the bear woke group and with wobbly legs moved from the iceshe becomes a GP. Kit was all for making When we first meet them they're at a run for drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it, but Teal knew that 's going to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the bear was hungry and gave him one apple and then anotherconsequences. He obviously needed to Twenty-five years later there will be taken home on an eerily similar event that will impact the bus and given a good meal and somewhere to sleepthree friends. What else would you do?This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Claire North0241636604|title=House of OdysseusThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre= Literary Fiction Autobiography|summary= ''What could matter more than love?'' The follow-up If you were to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks bring up an image of a few months after where we left offcity banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. In A hoodie and jeans replaces the palace of Odysseuspin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husbandviolence, who sailed to war at Troy poverty and then by divine intervention never returned homeinjustice. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the throne London School of the Western IslesEconomics. Having survived – politically Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and physical – the chaotic storm he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that Clytemnestra brought most rich people expect poor people to Ithaca's shoresbe stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, Queen Penelope is on the brink of a fragile peacecard game which got him an internship with Citibank. One that shatters however with the return of Orestes Eventually, King of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refugethis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|isbn=0356516075
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294270451035021803|title=The Girl in the EagleAntique Hunter's TalonsGuide to Murder|author=Karin SmirnoffC L Miller|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It''Life s twenty years since Freya Lockwood has more to offer than people - prime numbers for example''. Lisbeth Salander has headed north been back to the small town of Gasskas, English country village where the so-far-untapped natural resources she grew up. She's back now because of the area have sparked a gold rush. The criminal underworld has not been slow in coming forwardrequest for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. SalanderFreya's nieceformer mentor and Carole's mother close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the latest woman in circumstances seem suspicious, to say the area to have vanished without traceleast. It Arthur was only with reluctance that Salander became the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her niece's guardian but it quickly becomes obvious that Svala is 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 remarkably gifted teenager who's unaware cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of the part Salander played in her father's deathlife, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0CCCPJJ5BAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=The Last Person in the WorldAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Matthew TreeBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=45|genre=ThrillersScience Fiction|summary=Our narrator was a scholarship day boy at ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the London-based public school where he met Ralph Finnsshape of things to come.'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. It was an unusual relationship as Ralph was Well, I must confess that there have been more than a boarder and had money few decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to throw around on a Rolex watch, vintage wines and a state-me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some ofit is -thefrankly -art sound system. Both were probably quite surprised when they became almost friends and certainly more than acquaintancesfrightening. Finns had no intention of going on to UniversityOf course, unlike our storyteller I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who had a place at Wolverton College in Wellingford, knows what they're talking about or the UK's third most prestigious universitylatest conspiracy theorist. Before going up, he took up I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a loose invitation to visit Ralph at his home, Clouds Manor in West Dorsetway I could understand.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Dean KoontzSunny Singh|title=The House at the End of the WorldHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=When you experience overwhelming tragedy and feel The 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 no one on your sideSam, you can either suck it upa wartime photographer and Abhi, saddle up and ride on or you can retreat the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to your own private fortress on an island that sits snugly care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, he forms a small chain of tiny dots bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and keeps on the map and live venturing out your days in peace and solitude. That's what Katie thought she was doing when she shut down of her old life room to start afresh on Jacobtry to capture what's Ladder; and all would have been happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the aforementioned peace and solitude were it not for the pesky US Government occupying Ringrockphone, the neighbouring island their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and perpetrating all manner of mischief in the name of science and quite possibly bringing about they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the end of all mankindterrorists.|isbn=1662453159086154742X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=T Kingfisher1529153298|title=ThornhedgeThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=FantasyGeneral Fiction|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they'You had a right ve been murdered, but to retake your placehave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv'' T Kingfishers upset because she's latest novella is a lovely reimagining of a fairytale overheard that is well known and well belovedher father wants to move the family 'Down South'. But whilst there When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a princess trapped in a towerfrightening, foreign place, sleeping under an eternal enchantmentbest avoided. For Miv, Thornhedge is not the move would mean leaving her story. Insteadbest friend, our protagonist is ToadlingSharon, who was stolen away by fairies when and she was a new-born baby and secreted away 'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the land of fairie where dangers or that her childhood was spent being taught how Mum's stopped talking - to draw magic from her veins and cast spellsanyone.|isbn=1803364238
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{{Frontpage
|isbn= B0CCCVRSGX1398524085|title=Stories 2Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Richard F WalkerNicci French|rating=45|genre=Short StoriesCrime|summary= This is Richard F WalkerCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's second volume of short storiesfiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. There are thirteen in all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and I took something from each Greg, find the body of themGreg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. There isn't a single one It was an easy assumption for the police to make that doesnDuncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't deserve to be among stand the others or brings down the overall qualityguilt. It The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can be tricky to review short stories without giving too much away, so I'll just pick two to talk do but get on with their lives and wonder about and I think they give a general flavourwhat really happened.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17876366071035906708|title=The TrapDiva|author=Catherine Ryan HowardDaisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=It's a scene replicated all too often We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in the early hours of the morning. Drunken revellers spilling out of clubs December 1923 and looking for a way only moved to get homeAthens when she was thirteen. Some are lucky and manage Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to get one of the few taxis available. Others squash onto the night bus that will only go as far as one of the outlying villages. The woman all regret the 'taxi problemCallas', particularly to make it more manageable in the light of 'the missing women'States. For one young woman, the final stop on When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the bus leaves her Nazi occupation by a long way short of mother who mercilessly exploited her home. She had intended to ring someone to come and collect made no secret of her - but preference for her phone's dead. The bus had driven off before she had the chance to beg the bus driver to let her use his. There's no option but to start walking - unsuitably clothed and in high-heeled shoeselder sister, Jackie.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1405957174Christopher Edge|title=A Death at the Party|author=Amy StuartBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=From Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the first pagemovie starts, we know they very quickly realise that Nadine Walshsomething about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn's party will not end wellt even imagine. The victim - a man - But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is dying when we first meet him going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and Nadine consciously makes no effort to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738}}{{Frontpage|author=Rachel Greenlaw|title=Compass and Blade|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the ambulance he so desperately needsdeep, the answering beat in my heart. What we don't know ' Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the man ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is or why Nadine prefers secretive and with only coordinates to have him die. I'd better give you guide her, she sets off in search of a little more background so family secret that you can understand lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth whatmight save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's happeningterritory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Tania UnsworthJames Sherwood Metts|title=Nowhere IslandPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet GilThings have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. Just twelveAI and automation have been proceeding apace, he is so determined often replacing jobs they're paid to escape the care system – the system do and other tasks that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find a home for himselftook time to accomplish. He is en route Just as they were beginning to get used to yet another fosterer, when he jumps into an anonymous car, all this technological change and lets it ride him to his future. That future seems starting to be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag think of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in a camp on an island between the two directions of a motorwayother, a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough new ways to provide for their safety spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and seclusion. Them, and a mute girl also finding a home therealong with it, albeit all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so much more successfullyheavily. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…|isbn=18045400801736128426
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008530025Matthew Tree|title=Murder in the Family|author=Cara HunterWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=It was in December 2003 that fifteen-year-old Maura Howard came home Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and found the body chronic underachiever whose dreams of her stepfather, Luke Ryder, in the garden being exceptional at any of their West London home. He his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had an injury on the back endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to his head which could have happened if he'd slipped down the steps but the vicious beating studies, cultivated his face had taken was obviously deliberate. Twenty years later, no one has been charged with abilities rather than his murder and it's now the subject of ''Infamous'', a true-crime show. A group of experts has been brought together to review the evidence daydreams and to take the investigation further. More to the point, they're going to do this live on camera, episode by episode. There's no dump of the whole box set - and no shortage of cliffhangers. It's compelling viewinghimself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=A G Slatter
|title=The Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary='' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.''
Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's, a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.
|isbn=1803364548
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Judith Eagle1529900360|title=The Stolen SongbirdGhost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=CaroIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's motherfault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, a worldSturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missing-shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a while. Her other motherFinally, Ronnieit was Robin, Delaware's partner, is having to go up North to take care of her sister who is unwellnudged Milo into asking for help again. So who is going to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, She knew that the involvement was something that the man she feels frustrated and confused and worriedloved needed. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics are brought to a halt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's houseThe next case did look simple, along with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there toothough. But she soon finds herself caught up Two lovers were murdered in a mystery, as she discovers a painting the swimming pool of a bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcase, and all across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising peopleremote property in Bel Air. Is He was the painting somehow linked heir to the gang? And what has happened an Italian shoe empire and she is married to Caroan extremely rich man and it's mother? not the Italian. Is she somehow involved in But which of them was the mystery tooprimary target?|isbn=0571363148
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291959771529395224|title=None Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of this is Truea Vet|author=Lisa JewellSion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=ThrillersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=On her 45th birthday, Alix Summer celebrated with a crowd of friends in the Landsdown pub on Salisbury Road when she encountered Josie FairSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. She, too, His father was out celebrating her 45th birthdaya GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, only she was just with her husband, Walter. It turns out particularly when he considered the strain that not only are Alix and Josie birthday twins, they were both born in St Marybeing on-call put on his father's hospitallife. That's where When he was seventeen he took the similarities end, though: Alix, opportunity of doing work experience with her husband, Nathan, are in the midst of a joyful, monied group of friends family friend who was a vet and whilst they're not ''exactly'' rowdywas convinced this was the job for him. Before long, they're enjoying themselveshe was at Liverpool University. Josie, on the other hand, holds her handbag close to her tummy and you get the sense that WalterIt hadn's not too happyt - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. HeIf anything, he's not used d wanted to spending this much money on be a meal - but it is Josie's birthday after allprofessional footballer.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18033651100861541774|authortitle=Chuck TingleA Nye of Pheasants|titleauthor=Camp DamascusSteve Burrows|rating=3.54|genre=HorrorCrime|summary=Love is love; although humans continue to be confused by this sentiment. Gay conversion therapy is ongoing. The UK government ruled out plans to make it a crime DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend andformer colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in the USSingapore to meet up with an old ally, nearly 700 000 adults have received itGuy Trueman. Although it is both Maik was involved in a secular street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a religious prejudiceGhurka. Initially, Chuck Tingle, in his new horror, ''Camp Damascus'', peels back the skin he faced a charge of Christian ''pray the gay away'' camps manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to show murder the reader man. Now he could be facing the horror lurking withindeath penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1803136383Alexander McCall Smith|title=Tin Soldiers|author=David ChadwickThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary= Wat Tyler The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has returned from fighting in Vietnam under something of asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a cloudwhile. What actually happened Katie is coming out there is gossiped about of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and nobody is sure exactly what took placeso jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, but bringing us to an act of heroism leading Edinburgh we already love, thanks to a rare battlefield commission followed by rank cowardice 44 Scotland Street and disgrace seems the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to be the consensuscharm. Wat himself is keeping his cards close to his chest Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, as he and there's always does. her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0C7J9D21B0811771741|title=A Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)InstaKnits for Baby|author=A J LewisMelissa Leapman|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionCrafts|summary=When we first meet our hero, his name is Ettore and he lives at The House of Beautiful Swallows. Idyllic as this might sound, itMelissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a bordello and Ettore's mother died when he was borncollection of knits from toys to blankets. HeSome will be quick knits - others are of the 's not been short of motherslong, though - but for someone cosy afternoons in front of his background in late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, itthe fire's difficult to obtain decent employmentvariety. The stint working with projects are divided by the preparation of anchovies didntime they't work out ll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and bastards more than twenty hours. All the projects are considered bad luck on fishing boatsattractive, modern and useable. Ettore was nothing if not resourceful I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social- and determined media- and it was not long before he had a successful business as a guide for visitors. He was even saving some moneyworthy projects' but that's me being picky.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Dean Koontz
|title=After DeathThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, Benny is among 55 people who die when having a virus is released in a bio-hazard accidentterrifically bad day. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuaryHe loses his job, he loses his fiancee, covered in plasticand his house gets trashed. Oh, he and someone has delivered a sense that something veryreally weird, very bad has happened disturbing coffin-sized object to him – his home, and only him – as he sits up and looks around at it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the shrouded bodies of thing that has trashed his dead friends and former colleagues. house! As he recovers his sensesThe thing is, he realises that there Benny is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everythingthe very last person to deserve all this bad luck. ''Everything''He is a nice person. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymoreA really nice person.|isbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|author=Jamie Littler|title=Arkspire|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Two sisters So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, Juniper and Elodiea bad weather friend called Spike, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing who has been sent to be chalk and cheese. Juniper help him since Benny is an eager hunter and trader in illicit magic, including relics clearly under attack from prior major wars left out in the Badlandsnefarious forces for being a good person. Elodie Spike is intent on getting closer going to power in one take care of the religious districts Benny, and will certainly take care of ArkspireBenny's enemies, perhaps even to become the child in line to inherit the power of the Watcherif he, the closest to a ruler the district hasBenny, and one of the five major victors in said earlier war. Being trained in the magic that only five people Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can use would definitely change the status of the whole familyfigure out who exactly they are. But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to gain some power of her own – for good, or for very, very bad…|isbn=02415861431662500491
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{{Frontpage
|author=Thiago de MoraesAdam Stower|title=Old Gods New TricksMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Meet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapesMurray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, larks one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and adventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powdersleep and, well, she could almost be thought a young goddess whatever takes his fancy next of nuisancethe two. But just when shehe's being told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, the world changes. Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-out, even of electric cars, hits not just the town the schoolbad magician's in but the entire planet (apart from mobile phonescat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and all that powers the Internetcatflap they both use can chuck them out, just for our convenience's sake). Trixienot into the regular back garden, luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power but into a world of power from usfrightening adventure and whiffs. And so she begins her epic questThis time round it drops them into a Viking land, to gather all the people that can steal it back where a troll hunter is expected – namely the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the Godswell, ie the semi-deitiesone much bigger than Murray was, giantsto be honest, half-gods but he's turned up and so on known as the tricksters.he'll have to do…|isbn=178845295X0008561249
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|authorisbn=Alexia CasaleB0C47LV1PC|title=Sing if you Can't DanceFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=54|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=ItCan you make a ''Yo birthing person''s hard enough to navigate your teenage years without suddenly finding that joke? And if you're having to navigate a life-changing disability toocould, but that's what Ven is dealing with after collapsing on stage in the middle of a dance performance that was going to change her life. But she comes back fighting, desperate to avoid question should you make it? Or is the pity staresquestion if you did, and desperate to get back to a life would it land? The catch is thatthe answer for both could well be.... no. ''Fragility''s is set as normal as she can possibly manage. Meanwhile there's a new (cute!) boy in schoolthe city of Portland, Oregon, her music A Level performance piece cautiously begins to try to sort out, and just emerge from the day-to-day traumas of all restrictions imposed during the challenges her body continues to throw at her to navigate. So even though she can't dance anymore, might she be able to sing her way through instead?|isbn=0571373801covid pandemic
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|authorisbn=Helen Peters1529431735|title=Friends and TraitorsThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry|rating=34|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=EnglandIt's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, WW2. Two young girls are new at which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the country pile called Stanbrookmore surprising. One is Nancy, destined to be in service all her life it seems, like He'd been exiled on the female generations before herCosta del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The other is Sidney, return has come about because he's had a girl letter from a hoityhis ex-toity Sussex boarding school wife, saying that has been removed there away from bomber flight-paths. The girls are chalk she's ill and cheese, and if we hadnhasn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it solong to live. But something It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is amissabducted, stripped to his underwear and first separately and then sent to a watery grave in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be boot of a rum 'unstolen Ford Sierra. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is made of meetings with Germans, and not only that, Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a local Spitfire factory has been attacked. But surely the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhandproblem closer to home?|isbn=1788004647
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|isbnauthor=0241996104Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Coming to Find You|author=Jane CorryThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=Nancy's mother Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and step-father were brutally stabbed in the evening a helper at their Sussex farmhouse the dessert cafe his gran owns and her step-brother, Martin, has been convicted of their murderruns. We first meet Nancy outside the courtEli lives with his lovely gran, after Martin receives too – for there is a life sentencegeneration missing in the family. The barrister tells her that sheA few short years ago, Eli's received parents were both lost to the titular race, a 'silent sentence' globe- she's not been found guilty of anything but will trotting adventure where all entrants have to live with what happened for navigate the world in the rest company of her lifea magical beast. Of course, it's This has made worse because Nancy's rich - she inherited five million pounds the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from her mother - and gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the papers are making sole aim the most prize of it. ''Farmhouse slaughter daughter'' is one favourite epithet and ''rich bitch'' might not be printed but is undoubtedly spokenmagic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529413680178763681X|title=A Chateau Under Siege (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)Knife Skills for Beginners|author=Martin WalkerOrlando Murrin
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=One of the main events of the Sarlat tourist season is the re-enactment of the liberation Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. He didn't really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of the town from the English in 1370 getting both men and Bruno's there women to see the show with some friendsdo what he wanted. ItPaul ''somehow''s all been very carefully choreographed but goes badly wrong when, Kerquelin, got the man playing one of the main characters is seriously injured when impression that he departs from 'd be at the scriptschool to assist Paul, who had a broken arm, but it didn't turn out that way. Luckily, his doctor is there The teaching - and the man is whisked away in a helicopterproblems - are all his own. A local doctor (and friend of Bruno) wonders about his chances of survival but - as The one thing hehadn's a senior government employeet expected was for someone to turn up dead. Unfortunately, he was the man person who runs Frenchelon - discovered the military has stepped in. One daughter lives nearby body and another, who lives in California, is flying in with some of her father's friends for a pre-arranged holidayeveryone knows that the police consider that person to be the prime suspect.
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