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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18389544810008517061|title=The MisperDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Kate LondonStig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Ryan Kennedy killed Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a police officer: there's no doubt little uncertainty about that. He was the fifteen-yearfuture of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-old holding the gun grid and pointing it at DI Kieran Shaw. He pulled the trigger but due relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to the vagaries of the jury system he was found Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not guilty of both this is the murder future she wants for herself and the manslaughter of the officer. And so lives must go on. her daughter? For DI Sarah Collins that means leaving the capital and hoping for a quieter moment they’re enjoying life in the countryside but when a missing teenager is found present and putting the future on her territory she's drawn into a wider investigation - and the back into the orbit of Ryan Kennedyburner.
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|isbn=10350252991786482126|title=Went to London, Took the DogThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Nina StibbeElly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary=Nina Stibbe is returning Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to London for hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a sabbatical after being away for twenty yearsritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. SheIt's been at Victoria's smallholding in Leicestershire which isndifficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't all , that conducive to writing, she is pregnant with his child as there's always something smallholding happening - as you might expecta result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. The other side of the decision was sealed when a room became available (courtesy Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of Deborah Moggach) at a very reasonable rentsickness.
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|isbn=B0CKD1L5JL0008551324|title=Radio Free OlympiaThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Jeffrey DunnNeil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary= Petr 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 an orphanstruggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. Rescued by the strange This person, reclusive Bearhe promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in to be transferred to an open prison to serve the forests remainder of Washington's Olympic Peninsulahis sentence and to get an early parole date. After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human companyNot much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, broadcasting she's even prepared to do the strange, wild other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and rarely heard voices he encountersanyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.
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|isbn=16358662430008405026|title=The Knitting Pattern Writing HandbookA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Kristina McGrath and Sarah Walworth Jane Casey|rating=4.5|genre=CraftsCrime|summary=It''I quickly discovered that putting words s sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and numbers on the investigation ground to a page wasn't enoughhalt. Creating a pattern that was correctNow, clearher mother, conciseHelena, and consistent required a great deal of trial and errorher father are dead in their bed. Initially, patience, and perseverance.'' (Introduction byFrancoise Danoy) A friend recently showed me it looks like a knitting pattern for which shestraightforward murder/suicide but there'd paid good money. The first line s something about the positioning of the instructions began: ''Cast off 100 stitches..bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious.'' It What looked as though it was clear that no good could come of this going to be an open- the instructions didn't get any better and- and (finally) PayPal obliged with shut case is now a refund when the seller refused as she couldn't afford the repaymentcomplex double murder. The pattern looked pretty, but Kerrigan is convinced that the creator didn't have the basic knowledge and skills to enable her to connect with her knitters. She should have read ''The Knitting Pattern Writing Handbookexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
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|authorisbn=Adam Baron and Benji Davies0571379877|title=Oscar's LionThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=3.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=We start incredibly bluntlyEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with Oscar hoping to have his mother – or fatherupper-class friends, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book Robert and Stanza. Robert's a couple of times before he has to be ready for schooltheatre director. But when he enters his parentsHe' bedroom, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their beds also self-obsessed, looking sheepishdemanding, handsome and entitled and admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days. But there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat uses Edward to the bully that ruined a birthday party run errands for Oscar the other monthhim. And it can shapeshift, so Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he can take it to school and it can get him out of a problem. And it's wonderful drunkenly confided how he feels to have around the house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the rules, and so onRobert. OK, it canMost men in Robert't work s position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a dimmer switch relationship had begun between them but it can give Oscar he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a wonderful timedark passageway.|isbn=0008596751
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|isbnauthor=B0BC3YTCMRJo Callaghan|title=Good Girls Die|author=Ayura AyiraLeave No Trace|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=''This story When a man is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short found crucified on the top of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright studenthill in Nuneaton, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to hug the case alongside her in case it's contagioussidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's not easy being their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a black girl whose skin second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is 84% white. She had suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor himhigh profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went Will they be able to his house solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and he raped her. In shock, she even allowed him to give her potentially, out of a lift home.career?|isbn=139851120X
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|authorisbn=V Castro1399613073|title=The Haunting of AlejandraMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=34.5|genre=HorrorThrillers|summary=''This was Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a part quarter of her past that had to stop with hera century. She would be the one to confront this.'' At some point during her life Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, Alejandra lost herself. She feels as if she which is playing parts for others in her life – her husband and her children – without ever giving any thought a bonus when you aim to her own desires, her own future, her own identity. Day by day she goes through quotient motions without anyone seeing that there is something fundamentally wrongbe a cardiothoracic surgeon. For invisible to all but Alejandra, there Laura is a darkness threatening to consume herperfectionist and a trauma doctor. More Anjali is the free spirit of the group and more she is visited by becomes a ghost, GP. When we first meet them they're at a weeping woman drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in a fraying white gown dripping with watertragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, it's their teenage children who leaves distress in her wakeare involved.|isbn=1803365617
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|authorisbn=Richard Kadrey0241636604|title=The Pale House DevilTrading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=HorrorAutobiography|summary=Ford and Neuland are If you were to bring up an image of a couple ofcity banker in your mind, well, guys for hire I guess, though really the way I thought you're unlikely to think of them through the book was as a couple of strange detectives! someone like Gary Stevenson. One of them is living, you see, A hoodie and jeans replaces the other pin-stripe suit and his background is undeadthe East End, and so one of them kills the livingwhere he was familiar with violence, poverty and the other kills the undeadinjustice. (Only not each other, obviously)There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. They're on a job in New York that goes badly, Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and so they head out to the West coast to try to lay low for he has a while and find some other work to keep them goingfacility with numbers which most of us can only envy. But when a young woman called Tilda hires them to kill the 'something' He also realised that appears most rich people expect poor people to be haunting stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a wealthy gentleman's house they find themselves uncovering a whole lot of family historycard game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, and this turned into permanent employment as a terrifyingly powerful creature that they've never come across before!|isbn=1803363894trader.
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|authorisbn=Helen Cooper1035021803|title=The Taming of the CatAntique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Once again, mice are pitched against catIt's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. In this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case youShe're seeing s back now because of a connectionrequest for help from her beloved aunt, they live in a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the names of cheesesCarole. AnywayFreya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, Brie is shunned, scorned dead andthe circumstances seem suspicious, if you must, mous-tracised, for the way his habits don't match to say the other mice he lives withleast. They nibble up paper wrapping from Arthur was the cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on reason why Freya had not been back to the visuals on it. And that story-telling will come in handy one nightvillage: Arthur, when he she feels all alone and cast out, let her down badly. It's almost Even though they were in business together as if there were another character from fable who had had antique hunters, she has not felt able to tell stories to keep themselves alivebe near the man or pursue the profession she loved. This makes Brie After the top dog split, she worked in the mouse communitya cafe, though, as all met and married James (on the others had rebound from the chance to half-inch some cheese while the cat love of her life, who was distractedmurdered) and Freya and James have now divorced. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|isbn=0571376010
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|isbn=B0CDZRGT1MAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Super Short StoriesAll Tomorrow's Futures: Flash FictionFictions that Disrupt|author=Mark C WallfischBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesScience Fiction|summary=''Got a minute Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to be amused, entertained, or challenged?''''These 100 stories are super short. None is more than 300 words. You can read one in a flash.''''Some are funny. Some are poignant. All are shortcome.''
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|isbnauthor=1732898766Sunny Singh|title=The Adventures of Birpus and Bulbus: Book One: The Sour Milk Dragon|author=Wynn Everett-Albanese, Michael Albanese and Indre Ta (Illustrator)Hotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=For SharingThrillers |summary=When we first meet Birpus and Bulbus they're running for their lives The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in the Forest of Fine Reputean unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Their greatest fear has come about: Hiding from the Sour Milk Dragon is chasing them. He's right behind themterrorists who are rampaging through, spewing hotkilling everyone on site, sour milk from his nostrils. (Please don't try this at home: it won't end well.) Fortunatelythere is Sam, they were nearly at Nobby Lob-lolly - and when a ladder of moss wartime photographer and vines was lowered for themAbhi, they escapedthe hotel manager. They climbed up As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the Tree Wee homes high up residents who are still alive in the tangled woods where hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. Although they lived with only ever talk over the phone, their Grand Wees, Nester Nook friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and Granny Crannythey both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=086154742X
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|isbn=14722639361529153298|title=The FigurineList of Suspicious Things|author=Victoria HislopJennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly... ) She was alone: her mother's not what's worrying Miv's family, Greek by birththough. Women have been disappearing. Well, had left the family home and refused to returnthey've been murdered, but Mary and Hamish (Helenato have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's parents) felt overheard that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip father wants to move the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits'Down South'. She grew to love her grandmother and the familyWhen you's maidre from Yorkshire, DinaDown South is a frightening, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfatherforeign place, retired general Stamatis Papagiannisbest avoided. He was proud of his close connections to For Miv, the Junta move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and expected his family she'll do anything to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate themprevent that. His prejudices included HelenaShe's red hair and green eyes - inherited from not worried about the dangers or that her fatherMum's Scottish ancestorsstopped talking - to anyone.
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|authorisbn=Cody Goodfellow1398524085|title=VerticalHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=3.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= ThereCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's something about tall buildings that just captures my imaginationfiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Who doesn't love a good view from up high Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, after Etty. are all? Even worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the drabbest office building is somewhere Ibody of Greg'm intrigued s father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was an easy assumption for the police to get inside if itmake that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's 40 stories tall. So when I picked up this book – little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about people who scale tall buildings for fun – I was instantly intriguedwhat really happened.|isbn= 1803363991
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|authorisbn=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold1035906708|title=Finding BearDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]]We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, April had been on Bear Islandbut she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, a lot further north than many people would ventureNew York, in December 1923 and finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that only moved to Athens when she called Bearwas thirteen. Back home, things on the domestic and family front are a bit advanced, Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but not perfect for her, and so can easily be ignored when word comes through from father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the islands Bear was last left onStates. For a bear doing very BearWhen she was back in Athens -y things has been shot and wounded. Desperate to make sure he's OK, supposedly so that she and could get appropriate training for her father return to voice - she was raised under the Arctic Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and hope that in a world made no secret of very white and very dangerous thingsher preference for her elder sister, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the friendship can continueJackie.|isbn=0008582017
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|isbnauthor=1804183210Christopher Edge|title=No Reserve|author=Felix FrancisBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=Thirty-four-year-old Theo Jennings shouldn't have been on the rostrum when the colt - as yet unnamed - came up Lucas and his friends are all booked in for auction, but Peter Radwaya movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the chairmannickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, hadnthey't arrivedre looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, so he continued his session. many snacks! To say However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that he was shocked when the bidding reached three million pounds would be something about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an understatement. A lovely animal - but three million pounds? Two men had been bidding against each other. Brian Kitman and Elliot adventure they couldn'Mitch' Mitchell were well-known and respected in the racing industryt even imagine. Jennings was in But as they lurch from one of film genre to the cubicles in the toilets when the two men came in and their conversation revealed that the horse had been deliberately bid up to that next, can they figure. out what on earth is going on? Both were happy that Will they had insurance in place. The following morningever get back to the cinema, the horse was dead in its stall.and to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738
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|author=Sarah WilsonRachel Greenlaw|title=This One Wild Compass and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured worldBlade
|rating=3.5
|genre= LifestyleTeens|summary= My favourite Mary Oliver line is the one in which she asks ''What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?'' I get to love that line so much because can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my answer is ''This! Precisely thisheart.'' I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and precious life plundering the way I want towrecks. Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. In Mira, like her book that takes Oliver's words as mother before her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges , is one of the source) she pushes us seven who swim out to think about whether we really ''are'' living survey the life we want ruins – the best life rescuing any survivors and any treasure that we could be livinglies within. Her answer is an unequivocal ''noBut when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, we are notthey capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Don't care what you're doingDesperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she thinks you (wesets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, I) could be doing more…And sheas her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's effing furious about territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the fact that we are notfuture of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=17856338480008664730
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|isbnauthor=1839948493James Sherwood Metts|title=A World of Dogs|author=Carlie Sorosiak and Luisa UribePlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers|summary=In the interests of full disclosure, I must tell you that I'm Things have been a sucker bit sticky for dogsthe Earthlings. In nearly eight decades, I've never met one I didn't trust AI and I've loved most of them. I wish I felt the same about human beings. So, any book about dogsautomation have been proceeding apace, Ioften replacing jobs they'm going re paid to sit down do and devourother tasks that took time to accomplish. Then I'm going Just as they were beginning to get used to go back all this technological change and read it properlystarting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. And so it Life was pretty much shut down and, along with ''A World of Dogs''it, with ninety-six pages devoted entirely to my four-legged friends. Author Carlie Sorosiak found herself all the accidental owner of an American Dingo - she's learned quite a lot about dogs since thenmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426
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|isbnauthor=1405951680Matthew Tree|title=The Safe House|author=Cameron WardWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Jess Walker accepted an offer (OK, actually she was gently nudged into it by her friendTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, Rupert) to caretake a luxury property in the Australian outback for a couple drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of months. After the problems she'd had being exceptional at work, it seemed like just the break she needed. She was no longer a data analyst for the Metropolitan police in London: she was Jess who was returning to the country any of her birth his artistic passions all failed miserably and in need who had endless crises of the space self confidence. So Tim applied himself to get over the traumatic end of her relationship with Charles. A few weeks in the Otway Ranges in Victoria sounded like just the tickethis studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
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|author=Rachel HarrisonA G Slatter|title=Bad Dolls|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=It's been some time since I've read any horror. I had a couple of misspent teen years reading Stephen King, borrowing the books from a boy I fancied at school and scaring myself half silly with them to the point that I couldn't shut my bedroom curtains at night for fear The Briar Book of the vampires outside! Don't worry - this short story collection isn't like that! It doesn't have those jump scares, and I didn't have to read it during daylight hours only! But it is creepy, and I found most of that feeling came from the fact that these are stories about women, living normal lives, and that at least in part, the horrors arises from very normal situations such as a breakup, trying a new dieting app, going to a hen party and a coping with grief.|isbn=1803363932}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1394159544|title=Recycling for Dummies|author=Sarah WinklerDead
|rating=5
|genre=LifestyleFantasy|summary=''Recycling one ton There's a part of plastic me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can save up to 16.3 barrels This secret magic of oilmy 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''Recycling one ton s, a family of paper can save 17 trees witches who protect the town and the wider world from being cut downthe Darklands.'' If you send an apple core Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to landfill, it will take between 6 months be born into her family for generations and 2 years to decompose. A glass bottle will take up to 1 million years. As a just-post-WWII babyas such since she was young, I faced her training as a dilemma: reducing, reusing steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and recycling is part of my DNApotions. NEVER throw away anything that might When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie''possibly'' come in handy now or in s cousin Audra becomes the future. NEVER buy anything if you can cobble together something that would serve Briar Witch, the purposetown's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. Almost everything can be used one more time As challenges come her way left, right and any purchase must pass centre, Ellie uncovers the test of 'Is this absolutely essential?' On rare ability to communicate with the other handdead, I suspected I was guilty of wishcycling: assuming that something must be recyclable (toothpaste tubes - I'm looking putting her at you) and dropping it in the kerbside binheart of a maelstrom of chaos. YesReeling from one family secret to another, I could go searching on the internet - Ellie must decide who to trust and get conflicting advice - but determine what I needed was a recycling bibleto do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.s|isbn=1803364548
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|authorisbn=Lauren St John1529900360|title=Finding WonderThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=RooIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's life has become almost impossibly fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficultcases. Her mum died when she was young, His assertions that there were only open-and now she finds herself awoken in -shut cases which didn't need the middle help 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 ticketpsychologist only worked for a while. When asked what other family she hasFinally, she can only name her auntit was Robin, JoniDelaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man she knows her dad didn't think very highly loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool ofa remote property in Bel Air. But she has no one else, He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and so off she goes is married to live with her unreliable auntan extremely rich man and it's not the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. Things continue His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to get worse for Roofollow in his footsteps, as particularly when she and Joni leave London in Jonihe considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's old campervan, it breaks down in life. When he was seventeen he took the middle opportunity of nowhere doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and then bursts into flames! was convinced this was the job 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. Poor Roo!|isbn=0571376169If anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer.
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|isbn=14483097430861541774|title=The Devil Stone (DCI Christine Caplan)A Nye of Pheasants|author=Caro RamsaySteve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=In the village of Cronchie on the West coast of ScotlandDCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, five members of has taken a wealthy family are found murderedshort holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. The only item missing from the home is the Devil Stone: myth says Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that if the stone is removed from Otterburn House, death will followhe was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. The only suspects are known Satanists Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but in many ways, evidence came to light that's an easy conclusion given suggested that two of them 'discovered' he might have planned to murder the bodyman. The Senior Investigating Office is DCI Bob Oswald but when Now he disappears, DCI Christine Caplan is pulled in could be facing the death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn'shadow' himt help Danny at all.
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|author= Kay ChronisterAlexander McCall Smith|title= Desert CreaturesThe Perfect Passion Company|rating= 4.5|genre= Dystopian General Fiction|summary= With The Perfect Passion Company is a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanitydating agency in Edinburgh, post-apocalyptic fiction can become run by Ness and operating as an almost masochistic thrillalternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Whether it Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a robotic takeover, trip to Canada to get away for a world devoid while. Katie is coming out of water or a nuclear holocaustbreak up with a bad boyfriend, this genre is a way for humans and so jumps at the chance to come home to cathartically experience their most existential fearsEdinburgh. ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a And so begins this new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the fears that exist for humanity todayIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. It is Katie has no experience in running a shocking novel that still manages business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to find hope.lend a hand…|isbn=18033649981846976596
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|authorisbn=Christopher Fowler0811771741|title=Word MonkeyInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=54|genre=AutobiographyCrafts|summary= ItMelissa Leapman's the first ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of August in the middle of a cool wet summer in East Angliaknits from toys to blankets. I decided not to swim at Some will be quick knits - others are of the pool 'long, cosy afternoons in favour front of going to my beach hutthe fire' variety. The weather closed inprojects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, rain arrived, and I decided not five to do that either. When I finished reading this bookten hours, I realised it was because (a) I wanted ten to finish reading this book twenty hours and (b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shackmore than twenty hours. No spoiler alertsAll the projects are attractive, the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was' – modern and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosisuseable. There is something very strange I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being made to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, and you know he actually is at that point, because he doespicky. He did.|isbn=0857529625
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529077699Dean Koontz|title=The Raging Storm (Two Rivers)|author=Ann CleevesBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeParanormal|summary=''It's all bloody peculiar, isn't it, Sir?'' Well yes, it Benny ishaving a terrifically bad day. Jem Rosco blew into the local pub one evening in the middle of an autumn galeHe loses his job, he loses his fiancee, stayed for about a month and then turned uphis house gets trashed. Oh, naked and dead, in someone has delivered a small boatreally weird, anchored in Scully Cove close disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the village of Greystonething that has trashed his house! The thing is, in DevonBenny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. Rosco had He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the status of delivery to his house is a national treasure: new friend, a renowned adventurerbad weather friend called Spike, round the world sailor and all round ''celebrity''who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. I Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny''nearly'' said 'all-round good egg' but as we'll find outs enemies, if he could be more than , Benny, and Harper (a little bit close with money and his background isnwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny't s wild adventure) can figure out who exactly an open bookthey are. Where did he get the money for his first boat? How did he finance the trip?|isbn=1662500491
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0CC9W7GLRAdam Stower|title=On the Beach: The Winter Visitor|author=Chris Green Murray and Jenny FiondaBun|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingConfident Readers |summary=Kit and Teal were just beginning to wonder whether it was better Murray is supposed to be at homea humble, bored but warmtidy and friendly cat, or frozen cold one who is able to sleep and building sand sculptures on a snowy beach when a large slab eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of silvery ice drifted onto the shorelinetwo. On top of the ice was But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a polar bear. As hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the ice bumped onto catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the sandregular back garden, the bear woke but into a world of frightening adventure and with wobbly legs moved from the icewhiffs. Kit was all for making This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a run for ittroll hunter is expected – well, but Teal knew that the bear one much bigger than Murray was hungry and gave him one apple and then another. He obviously needed , to be taken home on the bus and given a good meal honest, but he's turned up and somewhere he'll have to sleep. What else would you do?do…|isbn=0008561249
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Claire NorthB0C47LV1PC|title=House of OdysseusFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=54|genre= Literary Fiction |summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person''What joke? And if you could matter more than love, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land?''The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294270451529431735|title=The Girl in the Eagle's TalonsWinter Visitor|author=Karin SmirnoffJames Henry|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins'Life has return all the more to offer than people - prime numbers for examplesurprising. He''. Lisbeth Salander has headed north to d been exiled on the small town of Gasskas, where the so-far-untapped natural resources of the area have sparked Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a gold rushdecade. The criminal underworld return has not been slow in coming forward. Salandercome about because he's niecehad a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's mother is the latest woman in the area ill and hasn't long to have vanished without tracelive. It was only with reluctance that Salander became her niece's guardian but it quickly becomes obvious that Svala hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a remarkably gifted teenager who's unaware watery grave in the boot of the part Salander played in her father's deatha stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0CCCPJJ5BAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Last Person in the World|author=Matthew TreeGlorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=Our narrator was Eli is a scholarship busy lad – by day boy an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a helper at the London-based public school where he met Ralph Finnsdessert cafe his gran owns and runs. It was an unusual relationship as Ralph was Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a boarder and had money generation missing in the family. A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to throw around on a Rolex watchthe titular race, vintage wines and a stateglobe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of-the-art sound system. Both were probably quite surprised when they became almost friends and certainly more than acquaintancesa magical beast. Finns had no intention of going on This has made the race anathema to University, unlike our storyteller who had the pair – but when a place bad incident at Wolverton College in Wellingfordthe eatery leads to a confession from gran, the UK's third Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most prestigious university. Before going uphates, he took up a loose invitation with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to visit Ralph at possibly save his home, Clouds Manor in West Dorsetgran.|isbn=0571382231
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Dean Koontz178763681X|title=The House at the End of the WorldKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Orlando Murrin
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=When you experience overwhelming tragedy and feel that there is no one on your side, you can either suck it up, saddle up and ride on or you can retreat Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. He didn't really want to your own private fortress on an island that sits snugly in but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a small chain way of tiny dots on the map getting both men and live out your days in peace and solitudewomen to do what he wanted. ThatPaul ''somehow's what Katie thought she was doing when she shut down her old life ' got the impression that he'd be at the school to start afresh on Jacobassist Paul, who had a broken arm, but it didn's Ladder; t turn out that way. The teaching - and the problems - are all would have been the aforementioned peace and solitude were it not his own. The one thing he hadn't expected was for someone to turn up dead. Unfortunately, he was the pesky US Government occupying Ringrock, person who discovered the neighbouring island body and perpetrating all manner of mischief in everyone knows that the name of science and quite possibly bringing about police consider that person to be the end of all mankindprime suspect.|isbn=1662453159
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