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<metadesc>Expert , full book reviews & recommendations from most walks of literary life; fiction, biography, crimenon-fiction, cookery & children's books & self-published books plus author interviews & top tens.</metadesc>
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==Reviews of the The Best New Books==
'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by category]]. '''<br>
'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE--> '''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|author=Sylvie Cathrall|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.|isbn=B0859115X50356522776}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008517061|title=Lies to Tell (DI Clare Mackay)Death in a Lonely Place|author=Marion ToddStig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=When we meet up with DI Clare Mackay again she's Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Daisy Cottage on Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the outskirts future of St Andrews his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her English Bull Terrierdaughter Diana, Benjy. She's just had as moving in together would mean a postcard from Geoffrey Dark lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and he's relaxing life to move in Provincetown, Cape Cod. He wishes that she was there, but Clare's struggling with Livia or does Livia move to think of what he ''actually'' Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is to her now. Is he the future she wants for herself and her boyfriend? Her ex-boyfrienddaughter? She can't work it out For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and thinks that Geoffrey probably can't either. Work's about to get very busy and she can't work out why DCI Alastair Gibson has cancelled a meeting she'd arranged without discussing it with her first. They're off somewhere top secretputting the future on the back burner.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17808998581786482126|title=To Tell You the TruthThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Gilly MacmillanElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=When Lucy Bewley was nine-years-Builders were demolishing an old she crept out of the house on in Norwich - the night of the summer solstice site was going to watch the pagan celebrations in Stoke Woods. Her fourhold seventy-yearfive 'luxury' apartments -old brother, Teddy, would have woken when they discovered the house if she hadn't taken him with herbones of a child beneath a doorway. But in the early hours of the morning, Lucy returned home without Teddy, hoping that he would have got home before herThere was no skull. He hadn't and no one has seen him sinceWas this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. LucyIt's story was crucial to the police investigationdifficult as Ruth knows, but it keeps subtly changingNelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Lucy is being advised by her imaginary friendHer condition will be obvious before long, Eliza Grey and Eliza says that there are certain things which Lucy must not tell the policeleast because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00082147000008551324|title=Cut to the Bone The Devil You Know (DI Meg DaltonD S Max Craigie)|author=Roz WatkinsNeil Lancaster|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=DI Meg Dalton It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and Ds Jai Sanghera are dealing with he's prepared to tell the police where the case body of a missing teenagerperson is buried and who was responsible for her death. Violet Armstrong This person, he promises, is well-known as a vlogger - championing someone big and it will be worth the cause of meat-eatingpolice doing what he wants. She barbeques meat wearing only a bikini and has attracted And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the attention remainder of animal rights activistshis sentence and to get an early parole date. The meat-eaters (they wear meat suits) are determined that Meg Dalton Not much to ask, is corrupt and not running a decent investigation (''obviously'' she only got the job because she's a woman) because she's a vegetarian. it? As if the case wasnThe new Deputy Police Constable doesn't enough, Megthink so and she's father is coming to stay with her despite having had little even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with her for fifteen years and Jaihim is kept well away from what's convinced that his girlfriend, Suki, doesn't like his children and that she wants more, but he doesn'thappening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17843851660008405026|title=The Third Reich A Stranger in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germanythe Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Roger MoorhouseJane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=HistoryCrime|summary=What is It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the first image that comes to mind when you think of the Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate investigation ground to a concentration camp? None of these halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are comfortable images dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but they are emblematic there's something about the positioning of the Third Reich's fascist regime in all its iniquitybodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. But some objects What looked as though it was going to be an open-and images from -shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that time may be the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less familiar to you. In this short volume, Roger Moorhouse has attempted to illustrate the period of the Third Reich through one hundred of its material artefactsconvinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=14091874380571379877|title=The First LieKellerby Code|author=A J ParkJonny Sweet
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Edward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's a theatre director. He's also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's 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's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jo Callaghan
|title=Leave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and 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 case and, potentially, out of a career?
|isbn=139851120X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1399613073
|title=Moral Injuries
|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=On Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the second first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of October 37-year-old barristera century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, Paul Reeve, returned home at 9 pm which is a bonus when you aim to find his house in darkness be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the front door openfree spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. His wife was in the bedroom in When we first meet them they're at a state of shock drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the bathroom there was a dead man who had been stabbed repeatedly in tragedy or the neck with Paul's paper-knifeconsequences. In that moment Paul takes a decision that Twenty-five years later there will be irrevocable: he decides an eerily similar event that he and Alice are not going to ring will impact the police and tell the truththree friends. TheyThis time, it're going to bury the body in woodland and go on as though nothing has happeneds their teenage children who are involved.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294018010241636604|title=Grave's End (DS Alexandra Cupidi)The Trading Game: A Confession|author=William ShawGary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=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 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 School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - 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 was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1035021803
|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder
|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Gram Hickman, who worked for an estate agent, took his girlfriend, Angela Booth, It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to a house which his firm was marketingthe English country village where she grew up. Guildeford Hall was an old Kentish oast house and was on the market She's back now because of a request for millions of poundshelp from her beloved aunt, Carole. Gram was hoping that he could get Angela into bed Freya's former mentor and heCarole'd brought a bottle of prosecco alongs close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. It Arthur was when searching for somewhere the reason why Freya had not been back to chill the bottle that he found 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 body of a man in the freezer in or pursue the garageprofession she loved. DS Alexandra Cupidi After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and DC Jill Ferriter are married James (on the caserebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Ukamaka OlisakweAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title= Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All RightTomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating= 5|genre= Literary Science Fiction|summary= The ''Opening up new novel by Ukamaka Olisakwe ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a look at the trauma and heartache few decades of being a woman technology in 1980s Nigeriamy lifetime. The title is I've kept up reasonably well with what'Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All Rights advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Ogadinma is the eponymous heroine Some of the story. We are with her in every scene and it is her narrative voice that leads the story- frankly - quite frightening. Of course, although Olisakwe writes in I could research the third person. This provides a sense of detachment for possibilities and the reader probabilities and highlights end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the isolation of Ogadinmalatest conspiracy theorist. She is exiled from her father's home I needed people I knew I could trust and sent to Lagos where she is married to an older man named Tobe. Their marriage descends into violence and indignities and Ogadinma must utilise her resourcefulness to escapewho could deliver information in a way I could understand.|isbn=1911648160
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)Sunny Singh|title=Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered HopesHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Graphic NovelsThrillers |summary=I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in the second half of their teens an unnamed city that has other priorities, you knowsuddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. I certainly didn't know of Hiding from the weeks of protests terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and hunger strikes from Abhi, the students before hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the massacre and the birth of residents who are still alive in the Tank Man imagehotel, I didn't know how the area had long been he forms a venue for political protestbond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and I didnkeeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what't know more than a spit about the people involved on either sides happened through her photography. This book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for Although they only ever talk over the phone, 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 whole season of protests back in 1989terrorists.|isbn=1684056993086154742X
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Joan He1529153298|title= Descendant The List of the CraneSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre= FantasyGeneral Fiction|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She'Heroes cannot be forged without villainss not what's worrying Miv'Princess Hesina of the kingdom of Yan has never wanted the thrones family, though. Instead of craving power, she has always considered the crown her inescapable duty and shrank away from the responsibilities of being Queen Women have been disappearing. To her Well, it has always they've been a distantmurdered, faraway future. Until that is, it isnbut to have 'disappeared' doesn'tsound quite so frightening. When Miv's upset because she's overheard that her beloved father suddenly dies, she is thrust into ruling. But contrary wants to move the official reportfamily 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Hesina knows all Down South is not as it seemsa frightening, foreign place, her father didn't diebest avoided. He was murdered.Determined to seek For Miv, the truth move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and discover her fathershe's killer, Princess Hesina will stop at nothing ll do anything to find justice, even committing treasonprevent that. Under She's not worried about the cover of darkness, dangers or that her feet lead her to a soothsayer Mum's stopped talking - to learn what happened that day and who killed the Kinganyone.|isbn=1789094046
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Pat Grant1398524085|title=The Grot: The Story of the Swamp City GriftersHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=45|genre=Graphic NovelsCrime|summary=Everything in this world runs on pedal-power, and that includes the punk bandsCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. There are three pedallers at the front of the Heath Robinson contraption taking our lead characters to the ferry across the swamp to Falter CityHer children, sons Niall, where a mother Paul and Ollie and her two sons aim to set up a yoghurt factorydaughter, Etty. You could say that yoghurt would be the only culture around, for this is a really roughare all worried but -andstrangely -ready dump of a placeher husband, Alec, but everyone is interested in small things that grownot. For the only money to be had – the only fortunes to be found in Falter City – come from algaeShortly afterwards, gunk Etty and other crud that – wellGreg, find the use body of it is never really made clear. Once thereGreg's father, the two brothers set themselves each up with a guide – LippyDuncan Ackerley, in the more forward-thinking, industrious of the two, with a besuited gent, Penn with a ballsy young teenaged girl with bright red hairriver. But which of It was an easy assumption for the two will come off police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the worse as guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they make can do but get on with their own way in this dystopian, semi-Apocalyptic hellhole?|isbn=1603094660lives and wonder about what really happened.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Ashley Poston1035906708|title= Bookish and the BeastDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating= 34.5|genre= TeensGeneral Fiction|summary= Set after the ExcelsiConWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, we are introduced but she was born to Rosie ThorneGreek parents in Manhattan, a Small Town, USA girl who has recently lost her mother and is entering her final year of high school. Things keep piling up for RosieNew York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she follows a stray dog into what she thinks is an abandoned castle in her town, things just get worsewas thirteen. Rosie accidentally destroys a rare book and with Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her motherfather changed it to 'Callas's hospital and funeral costs she has no money to cover make it more manageable in the damageStates. She finds herself working When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for Vance Reigns, Hollywood royalty on a paparazzi escape, to repay her voice - she was raised under the debt. For most Starfield superfans this would be Nazi occupation by a dream but Rosie soon realises Vance is a jerk - mother who mercilessly exploited her and he isn't too fond made no secret of her either. Howeverpreference for her elder sister, as the two are forced to get to know each other, their guards begin to lower and they discover that maybe this situation might not be so terrible after allJackie. |isbn=1683691938
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Justine Avery and Daria YudinaChristopher Edge|title=Baby Trolls Get a Bad Rap (Underrated Babies Book 1)Black Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary= Horatio, Saul Lucas and Grizelda his friends are three baby trolls who are fed up all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that everyone forgets about baby trolls. They are ignored in books and TV shows and films in favour has the nickname of their very scary grown ups'The Black Hole'. Our three heroes want equal rights for baby trolls. They want All big movie fans, they're looking forward to be seen lots of exciting films, and heard many, many snacks! However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and theyare swept up into an adventure they couldn've started a petition about it that t even imagine. But as they want you lurch from one film genre to sign. But how should the next, can they go about itfigure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and to their real lives?|isbn= B07XGN4LGY1839942738}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Samira AhmedRachel Greenlaw|title= Mad, Bad Compass and Dangerous to KnowBlade|rating= 3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=''In I can hear the endsong of the sea. The call of the deep, we all become storiesthe answering beat in my heart.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Hazel BarkworthJames Sherwood Metts|title= HeatstrokePlanet Storyland|rating= 34.5|genre= CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they''Too hot re paid to do and other tasks that took time to sleepaccomplish. Too hot Just as they were beginning to think straight. Too hot get used to go back'' During a British heatwave 15-year-old, Lily Dixon, has left home all this technological change and is reported missing. Rachel is a teacher at Lily's school and the mother starting to think of Miaother, Lily's best friendnew ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. As Lily's family Life was pretty much shut down and the police struggle to find any evidence that may lead to Lily, Rachel takes along with it upon herself to start looking for clues. However, as all the case goes many daily social interactions on Rachel becomes fixated on finding Lily and finds herself crossing boundaries, breaking trust and facing some impossible choiceswhich they depend so heavily. Will they find Lily? Does Lily want to be found? And will life for Rachel ever be the same again?|isbn=14722656021736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1538731738Matthew Tree|title=Simple Abundance: 365 Days to a Balanced and Joyful Life|author= Sarah Ban BreathnachWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=LifestyleLiterary Fiction|summary=Someone once said: it's not Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a 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-indulgence, it's therapy! I think they were talking about shopping, but it probably can be confidence. So Tim applied himself to most things. In my case, it applies to writing about things because I want tohis studies, cultivated his abilities rather than because I can sell it or because I've got something to sellhis daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Frederic GrosA G Slatter|title=A Philosophy The Briar Book of Walkingthe Dead
|rating=5
|genre= Politics and SocietyFantasy|summary= '' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I confess can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I picked this one up just want to enjoy it for a while.'' Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the library in my pre-lockdown forage world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's, a family of random stuffwitches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Now I have Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the pages I have marked town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and return to its varying wisdom when I need centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability tocommunicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Some books draw you in slowly. This Reeling from one had me in family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the first two pagesBriar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, wherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport''under threat.|isbn=17816883701803364548
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=085752612X1529900360|title=Rodham: What if Hillary hadn't Married Bill?The Ghost Orchid|author=Curtis SittenfeldJonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=I was tempted to read It hadn''Rodham'' by the success of Curtis Sittenfeldt been Lt Milo Sturgis's ''American Wife''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 difficult cases. That book wasnHis assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't marketed as being need the help of a psychologist only worked for a portrait of Laura Bush, but the word ''thinly-veiled'' seemed to occur very regularly in reviewswhile. How would ''Rodham'' compare? UnfortunatelyFinally, there is a difference: relatively little it was known about Laura BushRobin, which gave the book a freshness which the first third of Delaware''Rodham'' lackss partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. We've all heard She knew that the stories, read involvement was something that the books - about Hillary and particularly about Billman she loved needed. It's still an interesting conceptThe next case did look simple, though: how would Hillary have fared if she hadn't subsumed her own ambitions into Bill's career, if she hadn't had to carry . Two lovers were murdered in the burden swimming pool of all Bill's baggage a remote property in Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and if she hadnis married to an extremely rich man and it't left her own run at s not the presidency so late? Italian. Could she have done better without But which of them was the Clinton surnameprimary target?
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=07278892301529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Red, Red SnowSecret Life of a Vet|author=Caro RamsaySion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeAnimals and Wildlife|summary=In Glasgow, Eric Callaghan of Inkermann Tattoo Parlour had been Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to the ice show with follow in his wifefootsteps, Geraldine and daughter, Lisa 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 stabbed in Planet Burgera vet and was convinced this was the job for him. He died within minutesBefore long, but his murder seemed motiveless and there were no clues. He he was a genuine man and a talented artist: those investigating his death had hit a dead endat Liverpool University. There were two deaths to investigate in the north of Scotland: it wasnIt hadn't thought wise to involve the local murder team - as someone on the Glen Riske police force with so many students - been his dream since he was indirectly involved in the casea child. Christmas - and If anything, he'd wanted to be a lot of snow were rapidly approachingprofessional footballer.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B07S6DBCFT0861541774|title=Little Girls Tell TalesA Nye of Pheasants|author=Rachel BennettSteve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=In 2004 Rosalie, Beth and Dallin were walking in the boggy wetlands by Rosalie and DallinDCI Domenic Jejeune's cottage. Beth close friend and Dallinformer colleague, both twelve-years-Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an oldally, got ahead of tenGuy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl -yearhe would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife -old Rosalie and it wasn't long before she realised that she was losthe killed a Ghurka. Trying to find her way back to the main path she found Initially, he faced a skeleton, charge of manslaughter but when she finally got evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the road she man. Now he could never find her way back to the bog when she'd seen be facing the bodydeath penalty. Most people didnDomenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't believe her, putting the story down to her vivid imaginationhelp Danny at all.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a 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 Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596}}{{Frontpage|isbn=00082737900811771741|title=Remain SilentInstaKnits for Baby|author=Susie SteinerMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeCrafts|summary=When we first meet Matis and Dimitri, Matis is in a bad way, vomiting and obviously traumatised. When heMelissa Leapman's able to speak he tells Dimitri that ''Lukas is deadInstaKnits for Baby''. Lukas was in his late teens and he and Matis had come gives us a collection of knits from toys to Cambridgeshire from Klaipeda in Lithuaniablankets. TheySome will be quick knits - others are of the 'd answered an advert offering good money and accommodation long, cosy afternoons in return for their labour: they could have a decent life front of the fire''and'' send money home to their familiesvariety. Sadly, it doesnThe projects are divided by the time they't work out like that. When they arrive in the UK ll take to complete - on an oldless than five hours, uncomfortable busfive to ten hours, - they're dropped at a filthy house where several men have ten to share rooms twenty hours and sleep on dirty mattresses on more than twenty hours. All the floorprojects are attractive, modern and useable. ItI perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's modern slavery, which isn't uncommon amongst agricultural workersme being picky.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Amin MaaloufDean Koontz|title=The DisorientedBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionParanormal|summary= Adam Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has lived in Paris for yearsdelivered a really weird, speaks French more easily than disturbing coffin-sized object to his native Arabic. In facthome, he hasnand it't been back s possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to his homeland for 25 yearsdeserve all this bad luck. An old friend He is dying…or as Adam prefers a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to think of him his house is a former-new friend, perhaps not as harsh as an ex-a bad weather friendcalled Spike, or maybewho has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. The falling out was a long time agoSpike is going to take care of Benny, and Adamwill certainly take care of Benny's partner has no idea what it was aboutenemies, even so she urges him to go knowing that if he'll regret not doing so. Not knowing whether he's going because he needs or wants to, or simply because he was askedBenny, heand Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's on the next planewild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. |isbn=B07ZQSK9CY1662500491
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|author=Anstey HarrisAdam Stower|title=Where We BelongMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionConfident Readers |summary= I've always believed that places and buildings absorb what happens within them and reflect it back; this Murray is how we can tell that supposed to be a sacred space humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is sacredable to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. Cate Morris believes But he's a similar thing, she believes that bad magician''A house absorbs happinesss cat, it blooms so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the wallpapercatflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the wood of the window framesregular back garden, the bricks: that's how it becomes but into a home.'' She is having these thoughts as she packs up her homeworld of frightening adventure and whiffs. She has to leave. A combination of circumstances means that This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is not only redundant but also homeless. With nowhere else expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to gobe honest, she has called on her late husbandbut he's family for help. Just for a few weeks.turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=14711738360008561249
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|isbn=1787477681B0C47LV1PC|title=A Shooting at Chateau Rock (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)Fragility|author=Martin WalkerMosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=It was Can you make a couple of days after old Driant's funeral that Bruno Courrèges got an angry phone call from his son. Gaston's father had sold the family farm in order to buy an insurance policy which he had used to secure a life of luxury at an expensive retirement home near SarlatYo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, owned by a Russian oligarch. Before he even got to go there he died, apparently of a heart attack, and is the retirement home collected question should you make it? Or is the proceeds of question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the policy and Gaston and Claudette Driant were left with just answer for both could well be.... no. ''Fragility'' is set as the contents city of the farmhouse. The family hadn't exactly fallen outPortland, but Gaston lived some way away and Claudette had fallen out of favour when she announced that she was gayOregon, but they weren't expecting cautiously begins to be almost completely disinherited.emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
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|isbn=B083Z3ZZ611529431735|title=Broken Silence (DS Nikki Parekh 2)The Winter Visitor|author=Liz MistryJames Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=When we first meet him Stefan Marcovici has It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been in exiled on the UK with his daughter Maria Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a whiledecade. The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and hasn't long to live. He came expecting It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to work as a gardener his underwear and Maria was sent to be a nannywatery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Stefan ends up doing slave labour in Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a chicken factory: you can imagine what happens problem closer to an eighteen-year-old girl.home?
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|author=Justine Avery Alex Bell and Daria YudinaTim McDonagh|title=This Book Is Alive! (Living Book)The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary= Books ''want'' you to read them! They're not intimidating or standoffish or particular about readers. Books ''want'' to be read. This Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the key message wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in Justine Avery's latest offeringthe evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, ''This Book Is Alive!''too – for there is a generation missing in the family. By anthropomorphising the relationship between book and young reader A few short years ago, sheEli's sending an invitation parents were both lost to the titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all - pick me up, read me, be my friend, we can go on entrants have to navigate the world in the company of a journey togethermagical beast. It's This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a great messageconfession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, don't you think?with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn= 19481244160571382231
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