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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008517061
|title=Death in a Lonely Place
|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary= Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future 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-grid and relaxing life 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 and her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on the back burner.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Katherine Howe1786482126|title=A True AccountThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Hannah Masury is living Builders were demolishing an old house in Boston, having been sent Norwich - the site was going to live with hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from child beneath a young agedoorway. When she hears there is to be There was no skull. Was this a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. ritual killing or murder? Enthralled and horrified in equal measureInevitably, Hannah Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself embroiled in a young boyworking with DCI Harry Nelson. It's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides awaydifficult as Ruth knows, so that they donbut Nelson doesn't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely that she runs away to sea, dressing is pregnant with his child as a boy and joining result of the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boyone night they spent together some three months ago. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale prone to sudden bouts of life on the ocean wavessickness.|isbn=0861547438
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Tananarive Due0008551324|title=The Reformatory|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary= Gracetown, Florida. June 1950. After a scuffle with a white boy, twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, otherwise known as the Reformatory. It's a place with a brutal and dark reputation. But the segregated reformatory is a chamber of horrors, haunted by the boys that have died there. In order to survive the school governor and his Funhouse, Robert must enlist the help of the school's ghosts – only they have their own motivations...|isbn=1803366532}} {{Frontpage|isbn=1471180158|title=Maybe TomorrowDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Penny ParkesNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Jamie Matson works 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 an upper-class grocery store, for a man whoprison and he's a control freak with all prepared to tell the police where the subtlety body of a half brickmissing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. Jamie's sonThis person, Bohe promises, 'has his problems'is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that And what he's on wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the autistic spectrumremainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. Sometimes Jamie needs Not much to take time off at short notice - sheask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn's a frequent flier in the local A&E t think so and sometimes Boshe's not fit enough to go even prepared to school. Missed shifts or do the need to be other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong. It was going to come to a headwhat's happening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Harry Allen0008405026|title=Children of A Stranger in the SunFamily (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary= Ra Eun Seo lives in a North Korean town It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and she is the investigation ground to a talented singerhalt. Life is hard and food is difficult to come by Now, so Seo and her friends Nari and Min go foraging every eveningmother, looking for tree bark and edible grasses to supplement the meagre rations of rice and kimchi at home.|isbn=1805140493}}{{Frontpage|author=Edel Rodriguez|title=Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=We're in childhoodHelena, and we're her father are dead in Cubatheir bed. The revolution has happenedInitially, and Castro, first thought of as it looks like a saviour straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the country, has proven himself a Communist, bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for allher boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Well, those hoursWhat looked as though it was going to be an open-and-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time awayshut case is now a complex double murder. Our narratorKerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded disappearance: others (especially such as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmishDerwent's boss, such as AngolaUna Burt) and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned uponare less convinced. The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|isbn=1474616720
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=K P O'Donnell0571379877|title=The Vital Link (A Spark in the Ashes)Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet
|rating=3.5
|genre=Science FictionCrime|summary=VLEdward Jevons is a working-15class young man, a prototype robot, is desperate to understand who she is. Unfortunately, before she could find any answersobsessed with his upper-class friends, the world ended, consumed in an apocalyptic war between the nations of Drexel Robert and RenadaStanza. Over half- Robert's a-century later, civilisation is starting to rebuildtheatre director. Dr Amelia Wong is determined to continue her father He's legacyalso self-obsessed, building a world where machines demanding, handsome and humans can live together in harmony, but internal frictions entitled and external enemies might bring it all crashing down againuses Edward to run errands for him. Craig Anderson, leader of a group of salvagers called the Exhumers, Edward has his entire life turned upside down when been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he unearths a prototype combat robot: none other than VL-15 herselffeels to Robert. Even after being buried for 65 years, her determination hasn Most men in Robert't diminished in the slightest, and no errant machine, no savage human tribe and not even Drexels position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's ravaged ecosystem will stop her on her quest for answers…|isbn=B0CKRYFRZMnot like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1838954481Jo Callaghan|title=The Misper|author=Kate LondonLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Ryan Kennedy killed When a police officer: there's no doubt about that. He was man is found crucified on the fifteen-year-old holding the gun and pointing it at DI Kieran Shaw. He pulled the trigger but due top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the vagaries of the jury system he was found not guilty of both the murder and the manslaughter of case alongside her sidekick, the officerAI detective Lock. And so lives must go onIt's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. For DI Sarah Collins that means leaving the capital and hoping for But when there is a quieter life in the countryside but when second body found crucified a missing teenager few days later, Kat is found on her territory she's drawn into suddenly struggling with a wider investigation - potential serial killer and back into a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the orbit case and, potentially, out of Ryan Kennedy.a career?|isbn=139851120X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=10350252991399613073|title=Went Moral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to Londonbe a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, Took the Dogit's their teenage children who are involved.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0241636604|title=The Trading Game: A Confession|author=Nina StibbeGary Stevenson|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Nina Stibbe If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is returning the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London for School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a sabbatical after being away for twenty yearsfacility with numbers which most of us can only envy. She's been at Victoria's smallholding in Leicestershire which isn't all He also realised that conducive most rich people expect poor people to writing, as there's always something smallholding happening - as you might expectbe stupid. The other side of the decision It was his ability at what was sealed when , essentially, a room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a very reasonable renttrader.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0CKD1L5JL1035021803|title=Radio Free OlympiaThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=Jeffrey DunnC L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary= Petr is an orphanIt's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Rescued by the strange Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, reclusive BearArthur Crockleford, he is brought up far from bustling cities dead and busy human societythe circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsulaprofession she loved. After Bear dies and the split, she worked in a brief sojourn in human companycafe, met and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes married James (on a journey through the forest, broadcasting rebound from the strangelove of her life, wild who was murdered) and Freya and rarely heard voices he encountersJames have now divorced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1635866243AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=The Knitting Pattern Writing HandbookAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Kristina McGrath Benjamin Greenaway and Sarah Walworth Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=CraftsScience Fiction|summary=''I quickly discovered that putting words and numbers on a page wasn't enough. Creating a pattern that was correct, clear, concise, and consistent required a great deal Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of trial and error, patience, and perseverancethings to come.'' (Introduction byFrancoise Danoy)
A friend recently showed me a knitting pattern for which sheI've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you'd paid good moneyre eighteen. The first line Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of the instructions began: technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what'Cast off 100 stitches...s advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it' It was clear that no good could come s all getting away from me. Some of this it is - the instructions didn't get any better frankly - and (finally) PayPal obliged with a refund when the seller refused as she couldn't afford the repaymentquite frightening. The pattern looked prettyOf course, but I could research the possibilities and the creator didnprobabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I't have m reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the basic knowledge and skills to enable her to connect with her knitterslatest conspiracy theorist. She should have read ''The Knitting Pattern Writing Handbook''I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Adam Baron and Benji DaviesSunny Singh|title=Oscar's LionHotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers |summary=We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, but mother The Hotel Arcadia is more likely – read him his very favourite book a couple of times before he luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has to be ready for schoolsuddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. But when he enters his parents' bedroomHiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion killing everyone on their bedsite, looking sheepishthere is Sam, a wartime photographer and admitting that he won't be hungry for another two daysAbhi, the hotel manager. But there are benefits As Abhi continues to having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat try to care remotely for the bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar residents who are still alive in the other month. And it can shapeshifthotel, so he can take it forms a bond with Sam who refuses to school be cowed by events, and it can get him keeps on venturing out of a problemher room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. And it's wonderful to have around Although they only ever talk over the house – not limiting his biscuit intakephone, being much more lax about their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the rules, and so on. OK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful timeterrorists.|isbn=0008596751086154742X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR1529153298|title=Good Girls DieThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Ayura AyiraJennie Godfrey|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She'This story is s not for everyonewhat's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because sheLavender Daniels was three weeks short of s overheard that her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happenedfather wants to move the family 'Down South'. She was When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a very bright studentfrightening, foreign place, a bit too nerdy if truth be toldbest avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid she'll do anything to hug prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her in case itMum's contagiousstopped talking - to anyone. It}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1398524085|title=Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% whitefiftieth birthday party but never turned up. She had a crush on seventeenHer children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but -yearstrangely -old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice herhusband, Alec, is not. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math Shortly afterwards, Etty and Reggie asked if she would tutor himGreg, find the body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this It was just an extension. She went easy assumption for the police to his house make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he raped hercouldn't stand the guilt. In shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift homeThe Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.
}}
 
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=V Castro1035906708|title=The Haunting of AlejandraDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=34.5|genre=HorrorGeneral Fiction|summary=''This We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was a part of her past that had born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to stop with Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her. She would be the one father changed it to confront this.'CallasAt some point during her life, Alejandra lost herselfto make it more manageable in the States. She feels as if When she is playing parts for others was back in her life – her husband and her children – without ever giving any thought to her own desires, her own future, her own identity. Day by day Athens - supposedly so that she goes through quotient motions without anyone seeing that there is something fundamentally wrong. For invisible to all but Alejandra, there is a darkness threatening to consume could get appropriate training for her. More and more voice - she is visited was raised under the Nazi occupation by a ghost, a weeping woman in a fraying white gown dripping with water, mother who leaves distress in mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her wakeelder sister, Jackie.|isbn=1803365617
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{{Frontpage
|author=Richard KadreyChristopher Edge|title=The Pale House DevilBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=HorrorConfident Readers|summary=Ford Lucas and Neuland his friends are all booked in for a couple ofmovie marathon at their local cinema, well, guys for hire I guess, though really a place that has the way I thought nickname of them through the book was as a couple of strange detectives! 'The Black Hole'. One All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of them is living, you seeexciting films, and the other is undeadmany, and so one of them kills the livingmany snacks! However, and the other kills as the undead. (Only not each othermovie starts, obviously). They're on a job in New York they very quickly realise that goes badlysomething about this new film format is very different, and so they head out are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the West coast to try to lay low for a while and find some other work to keep them next, can they figure out what on earth is going. on? But when a young woman called Tilda hires them Will they ever get back to kill the 'something' that appears to be haunting a wealthy gentleman's house they find themselves uncovering a whole lot of family historycinema, and a terrifyingly powerful creature that they've never come across before!to their real lives?|isbn=18033638941839942738
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{{Frontpage
|author=Helen CooperRachel Greenlaw|title=The Taming of the CatCompass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.''
 
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 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 secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.
|isbn=0008664730
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{{Frontpage
|author=James Sherwood Metts
|title=Planet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Once again, mice are pitched against catThings have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. In this case, principally, we AI and automation have Brie the mousebeen proceeding apace, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case youoften replacing jobs they're seeing a connection, they live in a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem paid to be the names of cheeses. Anyway, Brie is shunned, scorned do and, if you must, mous-tracised, for the way his habits don't match the other mice he lives withtasks that took time to accomplish. They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he displays it Just as art and makes stories based on the visuals on it. And that story-telling will come in handy one night, when he feels they were beginning to get used to all alone this technological change and cast out. It's almost as if there were another character from fable who had had starting to tell stories think of other, new ways to keep themselves alivespend time, along came an awful pandemic. This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse communityLife was pretty much shut down and, thoughalong with it, as all the others had the chance to half-inch some cheese while the cat was distractedmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|isbn=05713760101736128426
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0CDZRGT1MMatthew Tree|title=Super Short Stories: Flash Fiction|author=Mark C WallfischWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=''Got a minute Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be amuseddifferent from his father, entertaineda drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, or challenged?''''These 100 stories are super short. None is more cultivated his abilities rather than 300 words. You can read one in a flashhis daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8}}{{Frontpage|author=A G Slatter|title=The Briar Book of the Dead|rating=5|genre=Fantasy|summary=''There''Some are funnys a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. Some are poignantThis secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. All are shortI just want to enjoy it for a while.''
Question: how do you review flash fiction? How do you give Within a flavour of a fully rounded little story if that story is told in fewer than three hundred words? Or do you try to draw out themes remote mountain pass, far away from all the flash fictions in world, lies Silverton; a book town under the protection of them? I donthe Briar't know! Perhaps we could start by explaining that there really isn't s, a fixed definition family of flash fiction but that witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for this collectionmagic, author Mark C Wallfisch has gone 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 three hundred word limitsteward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. ThatWhen her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's about 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 single page in your average paperbackmaelstrom 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
|isbn=17328987661529900360|title=The Adventures of Birpus and Bulbus: Book One: The Sour Milk DragonGhost Orchid|author=Wynn Everett-Albanese, Michael Albanese and Indre Ta (Illustrator)Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=When we first meet Birpus It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and Bulbus they're running even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for their lives in the Forest of Fine Reputehis help on difficult cases. Their greatest fear has come about: His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the Sour Milk Dragon is chasing themhelp of a psychologist only worked for a while. HeFinally, it was Robin, Delaware's right behind thempartner, spewing hot, sour milk from his nostrilswho nudged Milo into asking for help again. (Please don't try this at home: it won't end wellShe knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed.) FortunatelyThe next case did look simple, they though. Two lovers were nearly at Nobby Lob-lolly - and when murdered in the swimming pool of a ladder of moss and vines was lowered for them, they escapedremote property in Bel Air. They climbed up He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's not the Tree Wee homes high up in Italian. But which of them was the tangled woods where they lived with their Grand Wees, Nester Nook and Granny Cranny.primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=14722639361529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The FigurineSecret Life of a Vet|author=Victoria HislopSion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=General FictionAnimals and Wildlife|summary=It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to GreeceSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. She His father was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home a GP and refused Rowlands didn't want to returnfollow in his footsteps, but Mary and Hamish (Helenaparticularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritagelife. Her trip to When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the first of several annual visitsjob for him. She grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, DinaBefore long, but he was wary at Liverpool University. It hadn't - and frightened as with so many students - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He been his dream since he was proud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate thema child. His prejudices included HelenaIf anything, he's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestorsd wanted to be a professional footballer.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Cody Goodfellow0861541774|title=VerticalA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=3.54|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= ThereDCI Domenic Jejeune's something about tall buildings 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 just captures my imaginationhe was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. Who doesn't love Initially, he faced a good view from up high, after all? Even charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. Now he could be facing the drabbest office building is somewhere I'm intrigued death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to get inside if ithelp as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn's 40 stories tallt help Danny at all. So when I picked up this book – about people who scale tall buildings for fun – I was instantly intrigued.|isbn= 1803363991
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{{Frontpage
|author=Hannah Gold and Levi PinfoldAlexander McCall Smith|title=Finding BearThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=[[The Last Bear Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a lot further north than many people would venturemore personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and finding look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with trip to Canada to get away for a polar bear – that she called Bearwhile. Back homeKatie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, things on and so jumps at the domestic and family front are a bit advancedchance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, but not perfect for herbringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last left onIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. For Katie has no experience in running a bear doing very Bearbusiness, or in match-y things making, but Ness has been shot full confidence in her abilities, and wounded. Desperate to make sure hethere's OK, she and always her father return to the Arctic and hope that in a world of very white helpful (and very dangerous thingsrather handsome) neighbour, William, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the friendship can continue.to lend a hand…|isbn=00085820171846976596
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18041832100811771741|title=No ReserveInstaKnits for Baby|author=Felix FrancisMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersCrafts|summary=Thirty-four-year-old Theo Jennings shouldnMelissa Leapman's ''t have been on the rostrum when the colt - as yet unnamed - came up InstaKnits for auction, but Peter Radway, the chairman, hadnBaby''t arrived, so he continued his sessiongives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. To say that he was shocked when the bidding reached three million pounds would Some will be an understatement. A lovely animal quick knits - but three million pounds? Two men had been bidding against each otherothers are of the 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. Brian Kitman and Elliot The projects are divided by the time they'Mitch' Mitchell were wellll take to complete -known less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and respected in the racing industrymore than twenty hours. Jennings was in one of All the cubicles in the toilets when the two men came in projects are attractive, modern and their conversation revealed that the horse had been deliberately bid up to that figureuseable. Both were happy I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that they had insurance in place. The following morning, the horse was dead in its stall's me being picky.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah WilsonDean Koontz|title=This One Wild and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured worldThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre= LifestyleParanormal|summary= My favourite Mary Oliver line Benny is the one in which she asks ''What is it you plan having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to do with your one wild his home, and precious life?it'' I get to love s possible that line so much because my answer whoever or whatever was inside is ''Thisthe thing that has trashed his house! Precisely The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all thisbad luck.'' I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild and precious life the way I want toHe is a nice person. Sarah Wilson is equally luckyA really nice person. In her book So fortunately for Benny it turns out that takes Oliver's words as her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges the source) she pushes us delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to think about whether we really ''are'' living the life we want – the best life that we could be livinghelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Her answer Spike is an unequivocal ''nogoing to take care of Benny, we are not''. Don't and will certainly take care what youof Benny're doings enemies, if he, Benny, she thinks you and Harper (we, I) could be doing more…And shea waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's effing furious about the fact that we wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are not.|isbn=17856338481662500491
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|isbnauthor=1839948493Adam Stower|title=A World of Dogs|author=Carlie Sorosiak Murray and Luisa UribeBun|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers |summary=In the interests of full disclosureMurray is supposed to be a humble, I must tell you that I'm a sucker for dogs. In nearly eight decadestidy and friendly cat, I've never met one I didn't trust who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and I've loved most , well, whatever takes his fancy next of them. I wish I felt the same about human beingstwo. SoBut he's a bad magician's cat, any book about dogsso his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, I'm going to sit down and devour. Then I'm going to go the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and read it properlywhiffs. And so This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was with ''A World of Dogs'', with ninety-six pages devoted entirely to my four-legged friends. Author Carlie Sorosiak found herself the accidental owner of an American Dingo - shebe honest, but he's learned quite a lot about dogs since then.turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=0008561249
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1405951680B0C47LV1PC|title=The Safe HouseFragility|author=Cameron WardMosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Jess Walker accepted an offer (OKCan you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, actually she was gently nudged into is the question should you make it by her friend? Or is the question if you did, Rupert) to caretake a luxury property in would it land? The catch is that the Australian outback answer for a couple of monthsboth could well be... After the problems she'd had at work, it seemed like just the break she needed. She was no longer a data analyst for . ''Fragility'' is set as the Metropolitan police in London: she was Jess who was returning to the country city of her birth and in need of the space Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to get over emerge from the traumatic end of her relationship with Charles. A few weeks in the Otway Ranges in Victoria sounded like just restrictions imposed during the ticket.covid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Rachel Harrison1529431735|title=Bad DollsThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Short StoriesCrime|summary=It's been some time since IFebruary 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins've read any horrorreturn all the more surprising. I had a couple of misspent teen years reading Stephen King, borrowing He'd been exiled on the books from Costa del Sol as 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 wanted drug smuggler for fear of the vampires outside! a decade. DonThe return has come about because he't worry s had a letter from his ex- this short story collection isn't like wife, saying that! It doesnshe't have those jump scares, s ill and I didnhasn't have long to read it during daylight hours only! live. But it It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is creepy, and I found most of that feeling came from the fact that these are stories about womenabducted, 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 stripped to a hen party his underwear and a coping with grief.|isbn=1803363932}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1394159544|title=Recycling for Dummies|author=Sarah Winkler|rating=5|genre=Lifestyle|summary=''Recycling one ton of plastic can save up to 16.3 barrels of oil.'' ''Recycling one ton of paper can save 17 trees from being cut down.'' If you send an apple core to landfill, it will take between 6 months and 2 years to decompose. A glass bottle will take up sent to 1 million years. As a just-post-WWII baby, I faced a dilemma: reducing, reusing and recycling is part of my DNA. NEVER throw away anything that might ''possibly'' come in handy now or watery grave in the future. NEVER buy anything if you can cobble together something that would serve the purposeboot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Almost everything can be used one more time and any purchase must pass the test of 'Is this absolutely essential?' On the other hand, I suspected I was guilty of wishcycling: assuming that something must be recyclable (toothpaste tubes - I'm looking at you) and dropping it in the kerbside bin. Yes, I could go searching on the internet - and get conflicting advice - but what I needed was a recycling bible.swarning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{Frontpage
|author=Lauren St JohnAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Finding WonderThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Roo's life has become almost impossibly difficult. Her mum died when she was youngEli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and now she finds herself awoken in the middle of evening a helper at the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his way to lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the corner shop to buy a lottery ticketfamily. When asked what other family she hasA few short years ago, she can only name her auntEli's parents were both lost to the titular race, Joni, who she knows her dad didn't think very highly a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company ofa magical beast. But she This has no one elsemade the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, and so off she goes Eli knows his only hope is to live with her unreliable aunt. Things continue dare to get worse for Rooenter what he most hates, as when she and Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, it breaks down in with the sole aim the middle prize of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=05713761690571382231
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1448309743178763681X|title=The Devil Stone (DCI Christine Caplan)Knife Skills for Beginners|author=Caro RamsayOrlando Murrin
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=In the village 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 Cronchie on the West coast of Scotland, five members of a wealthy family are found murderedgetting both men and women to do what he wanted. The only item missing from Paul ''somehow'' got the home is the Devil Stone: myth says impression that if he'd be at the stone is removed from Otterburn Houseschool to assist Paul, who had a broken arm, death will follow. The only suspects are known Satanists but in many ways, thatit didn's an easy conclusion given t turn out that two of them 'discovered' way. The teaching - and the bodyproblems - are all his own. The Senior Investigating Office is DCI Bob Oswald but when one thing he disappears, DCI Christine Caplan is pulled in to 'shadowhadn' him.}}{{Frontpage|author= Kay Chronister|title= Desert Creatures|rating= 4|genre= Dystopian Fiction|summary= With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable t expected was for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrillsomeone to turn up dead. Whether it is a robotic takeover Unfortunately, a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction he was the person who discovered the body and everyone knows that aligns many of the fears police consider that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages person to find hopebe the prime suspect.|isbn=1803364998
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