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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lisa McMann0008517061|title=WakeDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Janie is seventeen and studying hard for collegeFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. She's also working lots There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of hours at his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a local nursing home lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to earn money for college as it's unlikely Little Sky despite her alcoholic mother is going to provide much in the way of resources. College reservations about whether or not this is Janie's only chance at a life better than the one future she's lived so far wants for herself and so you can't blame her for being so single-minded daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the pursuit of her goal. Only one thing stands in her way..present and putting the future on the back burner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385036</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jaclyn Moriarty 1786482126|title=The Spell Book of Listen TaylorJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=34.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Listen Taylor's father has just moved Builders were demolishing an old house in with his girlfriend and they are adopted into the Zing family, with all of its delightful eccentricities and unusual behaviour – the Zings meet every Friday night for dinner and then disappear into Norwich - the garden shed site was going to work on the hold seventy-five 'Zing Family Secretluxury'apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. Marbie Zing is terrified of doing something wrong and losing Nathaniel and Listen There was no skull. Her sister Fancy is becoming increasingly disillusioned Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with her home lifeDCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, and her daughterbut Nelson doesn's year two teacher t, that she is coming to terms pregnant with his child as a break up. The stories result of these people come the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to create a tale sudden bouts of life, love, and ultimately, what being part of a family meanssickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330446363</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=F G Cottam0008551324|title=The Magdalena Curse|rating=2.5|genre=Horror|summary=Mark Hunter is the sort of father who would do anything for his son. After losing his wife and daughter in a tragic accident, his surviving son Adam has become his whole world. And Adam is an exceptional child – beautiful, incredibly smart and mature beyond his ten years – only recently he's been channelling the voices of the dead. Plagued by horrific dreams, able to speak Russian in the hours after he wakes, drawing occult symbols when he doodles, Hunter believes Adam to be possessed. Doctor Elizabeth Bancroft is sceptical, until she meets Adam, and witnesses the horrors the poor boy endures for herself.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340980982</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Jon Berkeley|title=The Lightning Key (Circus Trilogy)Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=I shall start with a word of adviceIt's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. When you're being hounded by a circus master, and a magician, Neither side likes or has any respect for the soul of a tiger that's contained other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in a tigerprison and he's egg that's contained in prepared to tell the police where the brain body of your teddy bear, and your best friend - a fallen angel - missing person is trying buried and who was responsible for her best to make sure the other angels do not turn on you in a death. This person, he promises, is someone big way - then you're probably living and it will be worth the third book in a fantasy trilogypolice doing what he wants. Still - never mind, And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the angel's efforts will involve you entering a dream world remainder of flight his sentence and cloud cities, the chase after your enemies will take you across the world to desert oases and backget an early parole date. Not much to ask, and friends is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and old will be on board she's even prepared to helpdo the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847384447</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Townsend0008405026|title=Adrian Mole: The Prostrate YearsA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Adrian Mole is now 39¼ and living, quite literally, in a pigsty, sharing an all too thin party wall with his parents and working in a bookshop. It's not quite how life was supposed to turn out. As he spends his days wrestling his strong willed 5 sixteen years since nine-year -old Gracie into Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her school uniform, trying to reassure glamorous wife Daisy that life in bed one summer night. She was never found and the provinces is not as bad as she would like investigation ground to believea halt. Now, and desperately attempting to talk his her mother out of her quest to appear on the vile ''Jeremy Kyle'' show, worrying over his increasingly frequent visits to the toilet is really the last thing he needs. And yetHelena, the worst is still to comeand her father are dead in their bed. Think a crumbling economy, redundancy, affairs, death Initially, it looks like a family member challenging him in straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the novel writing stakes bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and a query over the big C – her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it's was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a tough year for complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the Moles, and thereexplanation lies in Rosalie's little that oldisappearance: others (such as Derwent' Adrian can do except sit back and watch his life spin out of control around hims boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lauren Kate0571379877|title=FallenThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=A 17 year old girl at Edward Jevons is a new school meets a mysterious and impossibly goodworking-class young man, obsessed with his upper-looking boyclass friends, who sheRobert and Stanza. Robert's immediately drawn toa theatre director. He seems determined to either ignore her or be outright rude to her's also self-obsessed, until he saves her lifedemanding, handsome and entitled and the two of them end up drawn togetheruses Edward to run errands for him. This isn Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he't Stephenie Meyers drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he''Twilight'', but it certainly has striking similaritiess not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385738935</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gareth HindsJo Callaghan|title=King LearLeave No Trace|rating=34|genre=Graphic NovelsCrime|summary=Hound me out When a man is found crucified on the top of town a hill in a most appropriate mannerNuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, but I do not like King Learthe AI detective Lock. For meIt's their first live case together, even as having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a trained actorsecond body found crucified a few days later, the language Kat is too dense suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and rich, the set-up too archly unfeasible to create the great tragedy it's thought a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to betheir AI Future Policing project. To my mind Will they be able to solve the acclaim case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and esteem in which it's held is only mirrored by its own over-long, over-blown blustering.potentially, out of a career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0763643440</amazonuk>139851120X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Theroux1399613073|title=A Dead Hand: A Crime in CalcuttaMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=34.5|genre=General FictionThrillers|summary=Set in IndiaOlivia, familiar territory for Theroux, ''A Dead Hand'' tells Laura and Anjali met on the story first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a travel writer suffering from writer's block (also known as 'dead hand') until quarter of a chance letter from an American ex-patcentury. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, the mysterious Mrs Unger, relating which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a story of perfectionist and a mystery trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a dead body in GP. When we first meet them they're at a hotel leads him drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to release his creativity end in very unexpected waystragedy. The story is more about obsession and infatuation than it is about We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the mystery itself as consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the narrator falls under Mrs Ungerthree friends. This time, it's Tantric charmstheir teenage children who are involved. But does she have more to hide than she's letting on?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Toby Lester0241636604|title=The Fourth Part of the WorldTrading Game: The Epic Story of History's Greatest MapA Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryAutobiography|summary=In 2003 If you were to bring up an image of a map was bought for $10 millioncity banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the highest price ever paid publicly for a historical document, by pin-stripe suit and his background is the Library of CongressEast End, where it is now he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on permanent public displayhis CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. No ordinary map, this Stevenson is sometimes described as America's birth certificatebright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It is the sole survivor of a thousand copies printed early in the 16th centurywas his ability at what was, essentially, and was discovered by accident in some archives in a German castle in 1901card game which got him an internship with Citibank. The sale and story behind it intrigued Toby Lester so much that he was inspired to discover moreEventually, and this book is the resultturned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861978030</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Steven Lowe and Alan McArthur 1035021803|title=Is it Just Me or Has the Shit Hit the Fan?: Your Hilarious New The Antique Hunter's Guide to Unremitting Global MiseryMurder|author=C L Miller|rating=3.5|genre=HumourCrime|summary=It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She'The banks fell over like fat Labradors running over s back now because of a wet kitchen floorrequest for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole' Surely that s close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the wackiestcircumstances seem suspicious, most inappropriate simile for to say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the credit crunch and all it village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has done for not felt able to be near the man or pursue the worldprofession she loved. You won't get any such namby-pamby animal likenesses from these authorsAfter the split, instead with quite she worked in a potty mouth cafe, met and married James (on them they will lambast the modern world, rebound from the entire banking systemlove of her life, all those who failed to see it coming, was murdered) and those millions just seemingly waiting for us all to revert to high-interest, high-risk, high-lending capitalism, so they can get back on the expenses train, Freya and back up the rich listsJames have now divorced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847443656</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover
|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Loose WomenSunny Singh|title=Here Come the GirlsHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Home and FamilyThrillers |summary=This The Hotel Arcadia is the second volume a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the panelists from that nice ITV seriesterrorists who are rampaging through, ''Loose Women''. Just as promised killing everyone on the coversite, this book there is an entertaining night with Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, the girlshotel manager. It turns out that they're just like us. The faces As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are already familiar and even if you don't know them yetstill alive in the hotel, he forms a bond with nine contributorsSam who refuses to be cowed by events, youand keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what'll soon find a like-minded woman behind one of the celebrity facess happened through her photography. The women are universally warm-hearted Although they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and supportive: there they both wait to see if they will be many a lonely woman who reads this book and feels as if she sat down with a group of friends for rescued before they are discovered by the eveningterrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444700154</amazonuk>086154742X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jean Ure1529153298|title=Fortune CookieThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Fudge Cassidy It's 1979 and the Cupcake kid are best friendsMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly... ) If the names remind you of a certain film then youShe'd be spot on as thats not what's where Fudgeworrying Miv's father got the idea fromfamily, though. They're actually chalk and cheese – Fudge is loud mouthed and opinionated and Cupcake is quiet and thoughtful – but the combination worksWomen have been disappearing. TheyWell, they've just started at secondary school and Cupcake has rather a lot on her platebeen murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Her brother Joey has muscular dystrophy and his problems are becoming more obvious. Add to this Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father couldn't cope with wants to move the problems and he now has another family'Down South'. ItWhen you's just Cupcakere from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, Joey and the move would mean leaving her mother – best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not a lot of moneyworried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007224621</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenifer Roberts1398524085|title=The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of PortugalHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyCrime|summary=Born in 1734 in Lisbon, Charlotte Salter was expected at that time the richest and most opulent city in Europe, Maria was destined to become the first female monarch in Portuguese historyher husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Married to her uncle Infante PedroHer children, sons Niall, seventeen years Paul and Ollie and her seniordaughter, she had six children (outliving Etty. are all worried but one of them)- strangely - her husband, Alec, and became Queen in 1777is not. A conscientious womanShortly afterwards, she had the misfortune to be born in during Etty and Greg, find the 'age body of reasonGreg's father, when church and state were vying for supremacyDuncan Ackerley, in the river. Instinctively a supporter of It was an easy assumption for the old religion, with a humanitarian approach police to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the Great, guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wore her crown rather reluctantlywonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Hughes1035906708|title=Thomas Wogan is DeadDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Max. When I say he sometimes gets the wrong end We tend to think of the stick about adultsMaria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, or dislikes his mother's new boyfriendNew York, or gets a bit feisty in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when he feels the need for revenge, I am certainly understating the factsshe was thirteen. He is a bit of a rascal Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to say make it more manageable in the leastStates. But all When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that might change when he finds himself travelling to she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a strange land mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of roisterous animalsher preference for her elder sister, and ends up installed as their kingJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeremy StrongChristopher Edge|title=Christmas Chaos for the Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog Black Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Trevor's troublesome dog, StreakerLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has had three puppiesthe nickname of 'The Black Hole'. They were fathered All big movie fans, according they're looking forward to local bully Charlie Smugglots of exciting films, and many, by one of his Alsatians. many snacks! Trevor would ideally like to keep themHowever, as the movie starts, at least until Christmasthey very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, but his parents have other ideas and put them they are swept up for saleinto an adventure they couldn't even imagine. Charlie Smugg declares that he's entitled But as they lurch from one film genre to half of the money from the sale of the puppiesnext, but before can they can be sold figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the three puppies go missing in the park cinema, and it's up to Trevor and his best friend Tina to try and track them down before Charlie demands his cash!their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141327243</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah Beth DurstRachel Greenlaw|title=IceCompass and Blade
|rating=3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Cassie lives on an Arctic research station in Alaska. She loves the ice and the wilderness of her remote home and she'd definitely prefer to spend her time on tracking polar bears and fending off frostbite rather than on mixing with her peers and enjoying college and home comforts back in Fairbanks. However, things aren't all rosy. Cassie's mother died when she was just a baby and she I can't help feeling a huge hole in her heart. Her scientist father is remote and unloving and her grandmother left hear the song of the station after an argument with him when Cassie was still very youngsea. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847386571</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Iain Smyth and Michael Terry|title=The Wide-Mouthed Frog|rating=4.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=Do you know call of the joke about deep, the wide-mouthed frog? You must have heard itanswering beat in my heart. It's a classic. It's one that you really need to tell in person, with your fingers pulling your mouth wide open, but to hopefully spark your memory, the wide-mouthed frog introduces himself to a number of animals until he finally comes across a crocodile who eats wide-mouthed frogs, and the frog does his best to disguise who he is whilst saying ''Ooh, you don't see many of those round here, do you?'' I'm hardly doing it justice, but it's very cheesy and funny. Anyway, this is a book of that joke.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408804964</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Annie TaylorJames Sherwood Metts|title=VioletPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Violet is Things have been a very special hippobit sticky for the Earthlings. She is extremely small but that does not make her adoptive parents Albert AI and Mavis love her any the less. Howeverautomation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they are slightly worried 're paid to do and other tasks that Violet has a very unusual habit took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of turning pink without warning other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and for no explicable reason, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906847371</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hilary DixonMatthew Tree|title=When Rooks Speak of LoveWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Arthur Transcombe is Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a middle-aged, grey-haired, 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-effacing poetconfidence. Unremarkable really - on the outside. He hasSo Tim applied himself to his studies, however, managed to achieve some success with cultivated his abilities rather than his poems. (Being a guest speaker at the Cheltenham Literary Festival is no mean feat)daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions. He is also a babe magnet!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904529429</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=A G Slatter
|title=The Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary='' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Graham McCann1529900360|title=Bounder!: The Biography of Terry-ThomasGhost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyCrime|summary=When I It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was in my early teensreluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it sometimes seemed as if Terry-Thomas was one of Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the stars swimming pool of almost every other five-star British comedy film arounda remote property in Bel Air. He was certainly one of the most recognizable characters of all with his gap-toothed grin, cigarette holder heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and inimitable it'Hel-lo!', 'Hard cheese!', and best s not the Italian. But which of all, them was the angry, 'You're an absolute shower!'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845134419</amazonuk>primary target?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Jay Parker1529395224|title=Stop MeLetting 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. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and 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. If anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0861541774
|title=A Nye of Pheasants
|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Spam E-Mails can be incredibly annoyingDCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, but most of us will have had has taken a short holiday in Singapore to deal meet up with them. Fortunatelyan old ally, we can hit the delete button and forget about them as quickly as they cameGuy Trueman. I certainly prefer not to torture my friends by sending such rubbish on, no matter how bad my luck is supposed to become if I don't. But I wonder how many of us would react if Maik was involved in a spam Estreet brawl -Mail actually he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a matter of life knife - and deathhe killed a Ghurka. Initially, rather than just claiming he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to be?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007079</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jeanette Winterson|title=The Battle of light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the Sun|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=London 1601man. Elizabeth I is getting on in years. Her capital city is a busy, bustling place. Boats fill Now he could be facing the river and people fill the streetsdeath penalty. Jack is happy because it's his birthday and his present is his heart's desire: an excitable black puppy named Max, who's a ''licking and a running and a leaping and Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a jumping diplomatic incident and a tummy in the air and a tail wagging and a barking, racing, braking, spinning energy dog of delight'wouldn't help Danny at all. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>140880042X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean UreAlexander McCall Smith|title=Love and KissesThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Tamsin The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and Katie were just thirteen and worried that they were boringoperating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. They'd been best friends since forever Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and were look after the good girls. Neither missed schoolbusiness, skipped her homework nor had boyfriendsas Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Well, that Katie iscoming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, not and so far. Up until then Tamsin had been jumps at the boffin head – consistently strong academically and looking forward chance to going on come home to universityEdinburgh. All that seemed And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to change when she met Alex. Wellan Edinburgh we already love, when I say 'met' I should perhaps clarify thanks to 44 Scotland Street and say that Alex pushed his wheelbarrow into herthe Isabel Dalhousie novels, from the building site where he workedbut with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Oh, and did I mention that he was seventeen, Polish and spoke very little English?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007281722</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Henry Mintzberg|title=Managing|rating=5|genre=Business and Finance|summary=''Study after study Katie has shown that managers work at an unrelenting pace'' How true, though it always makes me wonder why, as no experience in running a resultbusiness, there's such a market for bulky management and leadership and general business books like this one. How does anyone who needs or wants to read one ever find the time to do so? This title actually in match-making, but Ness has an answer to this, by providing two books full confidence in oneher abilities, and it is such a simple yet effective solution that I have to start there. You can read this book in one of two ways. Option one is to read every word's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, chapter by chapterWilliam, cover to cover. If you have the time I would recommend this approach because the book is very readable, not too repetitive, and quite thought-provoking.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0273709305</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kathryn Fox0811771741|title=Blood BornInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeCrafts|summary=To give support Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to a vulnerable gangblankets. Some will be quick knits -rape victimothers are of the 'long, forensic pathologist Anya Crichton offers to drive Giverny Hart to cosy afternoons in front of the courthouse on the day she is due to testify against the notorious Harbourn brothersfire' variety. But when Anya arrives at The projects are divided by the house she finds Giverny close to death and faces a battle against time they'll take to save her. In the paniccomplete - less than five hours, Anya fails five to take note of an important clue which might help tell whether it really was suicide or a cleverly staged murder. Worse stillten hours, in trying ten to save twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the girl's lifeprojects are attractive, Anya has interfered with a crime scene modern and the case falls apartuseable. She blames herself for the Harbourn brothers I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being allowed to walk free and only hours later there is news of another attackpicky. A pair of sisters have been stabbed and raped resulting in the death of one, while the other clings to life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340933097</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Leah FlemingDean Koontz|title=Remembrance DayThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Women's FictionParanormal|summary=In the year 2000 an old lady in Benny is having a wheelchair watches the unveiling of the new war memorial in the village squareterrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. ThereOh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's pride in what possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has been achievedtrashed his house! The thing is, in Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the family delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who are gathered around her and there are memories toohas been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Some are good but many Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are not.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847561039</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Neal LaytonAdam Stower|title=Surf's Up (Mammoth Academy)Murray and Bun|rating=34.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Having successfully seen off the rather unpleasant humans in earlier volumesMurray is supposed to be a humble, our favourite junior mammoths Oscar tidy and Arabella have nothing much else friendly cat, one who is able to do apart from return to Mammoth Academy for lots more double periods sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of Difficult Sumsthe two. They But he're supposed to be making presentations about what s a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they did during both use can chuck them out, not into the holidays tooregular back garden, but Oscar hasn't done any preparation into a world of frightening adventure andwhiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, franklywhere a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he can't really remember what s turned up and he actually did do with all that free time other than no Difficult Sums. 'll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>034098967X</amazonuk>0008561249
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ursula Jones and Sarah GibbB0C47LV1PC|title=The Princess Who Had No KingdomFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=The princess who has no kingdom wanders around in Can you make a cart pulled by her horse Pretty. She's very polite'Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, friendlyis the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, and kind-hearted, but she feels like something would it land? The catch is lacking because she doesn't have a kingdom of her own. The other royals she meets treat her nicely enough, but there's always a feeling that she's not quite as good as them because she isn't the princess of anywhereanswer for both could well be.... no.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846160421</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Bland1529431735|title=The Very Cranky BearWinter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Moose, Lion, Zebra It's February 1991 and Sheep head into a cave to get out of the rain, but little do they know that Bear Essex is fast asleep in there. When they wake him upbitingly cold, he roars at them, chasing them outside, so they decide to cheer him up somehowwhich made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. Zebra paints stripes He'd been exiled on him, Moose fashions antlers the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for him and Lion sticks a mane of straw on himdecade. Unsurprisingly The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, this makes Bear even crankier, so itsaying that she's ill and hasn't long to live. It's down hard to Sheep feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to save a watery grave in the dayboot of a stolen Ford Sierra...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340989424</amazonuk> Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kes Gray Alex Bell and Lee WildishTim McDonagh|title=Mum and Dad GlueThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the family. A young boyfew short years ago, Eli's parents are splitting up. He's going through were both lost to the usual emotions that children of divorce go through: worry, feeling unsure, blaming himself, angertitular race, denial, and then trying a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to get them navigate the world in the company of a magical beast. This has made the race anathema to stay together. His method for this isn't the usual response though: he looks for glue pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to stick a confession from gran, Eli knows his mum and dad together. Thankfullyonly hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, he finds some wise and kindly advice in with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the processonly thing to possibly save his gran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340957107</amazonuk>0571382231
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Clara Vulliamy178763681X|title=The Bear With Sticky Paws Won't Go To BedKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Orlando Murrin
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=ItChef 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''s Pearlgot the impression that he's bedtimed be at the school to assist Paul, who had a broken arm, but she says sheit didn's really busy t turn out that way. The teaching - and isnthe problems - are all his own. The one thing he hadn't going to sleep. She just wants expected was for someone to play and play and playturn up dead. When the bear with sticky paws rings the doorbell Unfortunately, he whisks her away on an amazing adventure - although as you might expect, was the person who discovered the bear has a little more energy than Pearl body and eventually she does get a little sleepyeveryone knows that the police consider that person to be the prime suspect.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408300648</amazonuk>
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