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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
 
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=K P O'Donnell0008517061|title=The Vital Link (A Spark Death in the Ashes)a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=3.54|genre=Science FictionCrime|summary=VL-15Former Metropolitan Police detective, a prototype robotJake Johnson, is desperate to understand who she ishas settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. Unfortunately, before she could find any answers, There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the world endedfuture of his life with his vet girlfriend, consumed in an apocalyptic war between the nations of Drexel Livia and Renada. Over half-a-century later, civilisation is starting to rebuild. Dr Amelia Wong is determined to continue her father's legacydaughter Diana, building a world where machines and humans can live as moving in together in harmony, but internal frictions and external enemies might bring it all crashing down again. Craig Anderson, leader of would mean a group lot of salvagers called the Exhumers, has compromise: does Jake give up his entire off-grid and relaxing life turned upside down when he unearths a prototype combat robot: none other than VL-15 to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the future she wants for herself. Even after being buried for 65 years, and her determination hasn't diminished daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the slightest, present and no errant machine, no savage human tribe and not even Drexel's ravaged ecosystem will stop her putting the future on her quest for answers…|isbn=B0CKRYFRZMthe back burner.
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|isbn=18389544811786482126|title=The MisperJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Kate LondonElly Griffiths|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Ryan Kennedy killed a police officer: there's no doubt about that. He Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was the fifteengoing to hold seventy-yearfive 'luxury' apartments -old holding when they discovered the gun and pointing it at DI Kieran Shawbones of a child beneath a doorway. He pulled the trigger but due to the vagaries of the jury system he There was found not guilty of both the no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder and the manslaughter of the officer. ? And so lives must go onInevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. For DI Sarah Collins It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that means leaving the capital and hoping for she is pregnant with his child as a quieter life in result of the countryside but when a missing teenager one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is found on her territory she's drawn into a wider investigation - and back into the orbit prone to sudden bouts of Ryan Kennedysickness.
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|isbn=10350252990008551324|title=Went to London, Took the DogThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Nina StibbeNeil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary=Nina Stibbe 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 returning struggling in prison and he's prepared to London for tell the police where the body of a sabbatical after being away missing person is buried and who was responsible for twenty yearsher death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. SheNot much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn's been at Victoriat think so and she's smallholding in Leicestershire which isn't all even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that conducive to writing, as thereDS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's always something smallholding happening - as you might expect. The other side of the decision was sealed when a room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a very reasonable rent.
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|isbn=B0CKD1L5JL0008405026|title=Radio Free OlympiaA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jeffrey DunnJane Casey|rating=45|genre=General FictionCrime|summary= Petr is an orphanIt's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. Rescued by She was never found and the strangeinvestigation ground to a halt. Now, reclusive Bearher mother, Helena, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human societyher father are dead in their bed. Initially, in it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the forests positioning of Washington's Olympic Peninsulathe bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. After Bear dies What looked as though it was going to be an open-and -shut case is now a brief sojourn complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in human company, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitterRosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encountersUna Burt) are less convinced.
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|isbn=16358662430571379877|title=The Knitting Pattern Writing HandbookKellerby Code|author=Kristina McGrath and Sarah Walworth Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5|genre=CraftsCrime|summary=''I quickly discovered that putting words and numbers on Edward Jevons is a page wasn't enough. Creating a pattern that was correctworking-class young man, clear, conciseobsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and consistent required a great deal of trial and error, patience, and perseveranceStanza. Robert'' (Introduction byFrancoise Danoy) A friend recently showed me s a knitting pattern for which she'd paid good moneytheatre director. The first line of the instructions began: He''Cast off 100 stitchess also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him...'' It was clear that no good could come of this - the instructions didn't get any better Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and (finally) PayPal obliged with a refund when the seller refused as she couldnhe't afford the repayments drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. The pattern looked pretty, Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but the creator didnhe't have s not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the basic knowledge and skills to enable her to connect with her knitters. She should have read ''The Knitting Pattern Writing Handbook''two of them kissing in a dark passageway.
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|author=Adam Baron and Benji DaviesJo Callaghan|title=Oscar's LionLeave No Trace|rating=34|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=We start incredibly bluntlyWhen a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, with Oscar hoping DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to have his mother – or fatherthe case alongside her sidekick, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book a couple of times before he has to be ready for schoolthe AI detective Lock. But when he enters his parentsIt' bedroom, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on s their bedfirst live case together, looking sheepish, and admitting that he won't be hungry for another two dayshaving previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there are benefits to having is a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the bully that ruined second body found crucified a birthday party for Oscar the other month. And it can shapeshiftfew days later, so he can take it to school Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and it can get him out a very high profile case that draws a lot of a problemunwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. And it's wonderful Will they be able to have around solve the house – not limiting his biscuit intakecase in time, being much more lax about or will Kat find herself taken off the rulescase and, and so on. OKpotentially, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar out of a wonderful time.career?|isbn=0008596751139851120X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR1399613073|title=Good Girls DieMoral Injuries|author=Ayura AyiraChristie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionThrillers|summary=''This story is not Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short a quarter of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happeneda century. She was a very bright studentOlivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bit too nerdy if truth bonus when you aim to be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagiousa cardiothoracic surgeon. It's not easy being Laura is a perfectionist and a black girl whose skin is 84% whitetrauma doctor. She had Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice herGP. Then he did: Lavender was very good When we first meet them they're at math a drug and Reggie asked if she would tutor himalcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extensionWe don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. She went to his house and he raped herTwenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. In shockThis time, she even allowed him to give her a lift homeit's their teenage children who are involved.
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|authorisbn=V Castro0241636604|title=The Haunting of AlejandraTrading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=34.5|genre=HorrorAutobiography|summary=''This was If you were to bring up an image of a part of her past that had to stop with her. She would be the one to confront this.'' At some point during her life, Alejandra lost herself. She feels as if she is playing parts for others city banker in her life – her husband and her children – without ever giving any thought to her own desiresyour mind, her own future, her own identity. Day by day she goes through quotient motions without anyone seeing that there is something fundamentally wrong. For invisible you're unlikely to all but Alejandra, there is a darkness threatening to consume herthink of someone like Gary Stevenson. More A hoodie and more she jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is visited by a ghostthe East End, a weeping woman in a fraying white gown dripping where he was familiar with waterviolence, who leaves distress in her wakepoverty and injustice.|isbn=1803365617}}{{Frontpage|author=Richard Kadrey|title=The Pale House Devil|rating=4|genre=Horror|summary=Ford and Neuland are a couple of, well, guys for hire I guess, though really There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the way I thought London School of them through the book was as a couple of strange detectives! Economics. One of them Stevenson is living, you see, bright - extremely bright - and the other is undead, and so one he has a facility with numbers which most of them kills the living, and the other kills the undeadus can only envy. (Only not each other, obviously)He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. They're on a job in New York that goes badlyIt was his ability at what was, essentially, and so they head out to the West coast to try to lay low for a while and find some other work to keep them goingcard game which got him an internship with Citibank. But when a young woman called Tilda hires them to kill the 'something' that appears to be haunting a wealthy gentleman's house they find themselves uncovering a whole lot of family historyEventually, and this turned into permanent employment as a terrifyingly powerful creature that they've never come across before!|isbn=1803363894trader.
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{{Frontpage
|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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{{Frontpage
|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.''
Question: how do I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you review flash fiction? How do you give 're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a flavour few decades of a fully rounded little story if that story is told technology in fewer than three hundred words? Or do you try my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to draw out themes me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from all the flash fictions in a book me. Some of them? it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I don't know! Perhaps we could start by explaining that there research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really isnunderstanding whether I't a fixed definition of flash fiction but that for this collection, author Mark C Wallfisch has gone for a three hundred word limit. Thatm reading someone who knows what they's re talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a single page in your average paperbackway I could understand.
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{{Frontpage
|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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{{Frontpage
|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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{{Frontpage
|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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{{Frontpage
|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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{{Frontpage
|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 friend, Rupert) Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to caretake a luxury property in the Australian outback for a couple of months. After the problems she'd had at workbe different from his father, 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 of her birth drunk and in need chronic underachiever whose dreams of the space to get over the traumatic end of her relationship with Charles. A few weeks in the Otway Ranges in Victoria sounded like just the ticket.}}{{Frontpage|author=Rachel Harrison|title=Bad Dolls|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=It's been some time since I've read being exceptional at any horror. I had a couple of misspent teen years reading Stephen King, borrowing the books from a boy I fancied at school his artistic passions all failed miserably and scaring myself half silly with them to the point that I couldn't shut my bedroom curtains at night for fear who had endless crises 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 self confidence. So Tim applied himself to read it during daylight hours only! But it is creepyhis studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams 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 griefset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn=1803363932B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1394159544A G Slatter|title=Recycling for Dummies|author=Sarah WinklerThe Briar Book of the Dead
|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.'' ''Recycling one ton of paper can save 17 trees from being cut downI just want to enjoy it for a while.''
If you send an apple core to landfillWithin a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's, it will take between 6 months a family of witches who protect the town and 2 years to decomposethe wider world from the Darklands. A glass bottle will take up Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to 1 million years. As a just-post-WWII babybe born into her family for generations and as 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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{{Frontpage
|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 DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the village of Cronchie on man. Now he could be facing the West coast of Scotland, five members of death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a wealthy family are found murdereddiplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.}}{{Frontpage|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Perfect Passion Company|rating=4. 5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The only item missing from the home Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the Devil Stone: myth says that online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the stone business, as Ness is removed planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Otterburn HouseAlexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, death will followbut with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. The only suspects are known Satanists Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in many waysher abilities, thatand there's an easy conclusion given that two of them 'discovered' the body. The Senior Investigating Office is DCI Bob Oswald but when he disappearsalways her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, DCI Christine Caplan is pulled in to 'shadow' him.lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596
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|authorisbn= Kay Chronister0811771741|title= Desert CreaturesInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating= 4|genre= Dystopian FictionCrafts|summary= With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, Baby'' gives us a world devoid collection of water or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a way for humans knits from toys to cathartically experience their most existential fearsblankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the fire'Desert Creaturesvariety. The projects are divided by the time they'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of postll take to complete -apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the fears that exist for humanity todayprojects are attractive, modern and useable. It is a shocking novel I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that still manages to find hope's me being picky.|isbn=1803364998
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|author=Christopher FowlerDean Koontz|title=Word MonkeyThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyParanormal|summary= It's the first of August in the middle of Benny is having a cool wet summer in East Angliaterrifically bad day. I decided not to swim at the pool in favour of going to my beach hut. The weather closed inHe loses his job, rain arrivedhe loses his fiancee, and I decided not to do that eitherhis house gets trashed. When I finished reading this bookOh, I realised it was because (and someone has delivered a) I wanted really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to finish reading this book his home, and (b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shack. it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! No spoiler alertsThe thing is, Benny is the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'was' – and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosisvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. There He is something very strange about being made a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to laugh by his house is a man new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who repeatedly reminds you that he has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is dyinggoing to take care of Benny, and you know will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he actually is at that point, because he does. He didBenny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=08575296251662500491
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529077699Adam Stower|title=The Raging Storm (Two Rivers)|author=Ann CleevesMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers |summary=Murray 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'Its 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, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's all bloody peculiarturned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=0008561249}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0C47LV1PC|title=Fragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, isn't is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, Sirwould it land?''The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.
Well yes, it ''Fragility'' is. Jem Rosco blew into the local pub one evening in set as the middle city of an autumn galePortland, stayed for about a month and then turned upOregon, naked and dead, in a small boat, anchored in Scully Cove close cautiously begins to emerge from the village of Greystone, in Devon. Rosco had the status of a national treasure: a renowned adventurer, round the world sailor and all round ''celebrity''. I ''nearly'' said 'all-round good egg' but as we'll find out, he could be more than a little bit close with money and his background isn't exactly an open book. Where did he get the money for his first boat? How did he finance restrictions imposed during the trip?covid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0CC9W7GLR1529431735|title=On the Beach: The Winter Visitor|author=Chris Green and Jenny FiondaJames Henry|rating=54|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Kit It's February 1991 and Teal were just beginning to wonder whether it was better to be at homeEssex is bitingly cold, bored but warm, or frozen cold and building sand sculptures on a snowy beach when a large slab of silvery ice drifted onto which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the shorelinemore surprising. On top of He'd been exiled on the ice was Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a polar beardecade. As the ice bumped onto the sandThe return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, the bear woke saying that she's ill and with wobbly legs moved from the icehasn't long to live. Kit was all for making a run for itIt's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, but Teal knew that the bear was hungry stripped to his underwear and gave him one apple and then another. He obviously needed sent to be taken home on a watery grave in the bus and given boot of a good meal and somewhere to sleepstolen Ford Sierra. What else would you doIs it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{Frontpage
|author=Claire NorthAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=House The Glorious Race of OdysseusMagical Beasts|rating=54|genre= Literary Fiction Confident Readers|summary= ''What could matter more than love?'' The follow-up to Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where wondrous library we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, start by visiting with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husbandhim, who sailed to war and in the evening a helper at Troy the dessert cafe his gran owns and then by divine intervention never returned homeruns. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the throne of the Western Islesfamily. Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca A few short years ago, Eli's shoresparents were both lost to the titular race, Queen Penelope is on a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the brink company of a fragile peacemagical beast. One that shatters however This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the return sole aim the prize of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his sister Elektra, seeking refugegran.|isbn=03565160750571382231
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529427045178763681X|title=The Girl in the Eagle's TalonsKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Karin SmirnoffOrlando Murrin|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=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 getting both men and women to do what he wanted. Paul ''somehow'Life has more to offer than people - prime numbers for example'got the impression that he'. Lisbeth Salander has headed north d be at the school to the small town of Gasskasassist Paul, who had a broken arm, where but it didn't turn out that way. The teaching - and the so-farproblems -untapped natural resources of the area have sparked a gold rushare all his own. The criminal underworld has not been slow in coming forward. Salanderone thing he hadn's niece's mother is the latest woman in the area t expected was for someone to have vanished without traceturn up dead. It Unfortunately, he was only with reluctance the person who discovered the body and everyone knows that Salander became her niece's guardian but it quickly becomes obvious the police consider that Svala is a remarkably gifted teenager who's unaware of person to be the part Salander played in her father's deathprime suspect.
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