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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|author=Natasha FarrantSylvie Cathrall|title=The Rescue of RavenwoodA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=This story is another excellent adventure from the author of ''Voyage of the Sparrowhawk''. Ravenwood is an old house, in the North of England, where Bea and Raffy have been living for most of their lives. They There are part of few greater joys than a complex, extended family arrangement, as Bea is there with her Uncle Leo, and Raffy is there with his mum, and they are living together as book which lives up to a familycompelling premise. They have grown up swimming in the cove, roaming through the trees, completely at And this is one with all of the nature around the house and loving every inch of the place. But now the house is under threat, as Leo is under pressure from his other two brothers to sell the property to a developer as it's becoming more and more expensive to maintain. The children find themselves worrying not only about where they're going to live, but if they'll even be together, and if Ravenwood itself will be torn downthem.|isbn=05713487850356522776
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Nick Brooks0008517061|title=Promise BoysDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=When the principal (headmaster) of Urban Promise Prep school is murderedFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, three boys find themselves called has settled into the police station as suspectshis rustic life at Little Sky. Each, seemingly, has There’s perhaps a grudge of some description against Principal Moore, and each could have been there at little uncertainty about the time future of his murder. But who killed himlife with his vet girlfriend, Livia and whyher daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and if any of relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the boys are innocent, will they be able to clear their namesfuture she wants for herself and her daughter?|isbn=1035003155 For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on the back burner.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=G K Holloway1786482126|title=In the Shadows of CastlesThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary= We begin after the momentous battle Builders were demolishing an old house in 1066 and on Norwich - the day of William of Normandysite was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury's coronation as King apartments - when they discovered the bones of Englanda child beneath a doorway. William's position is not secure and the new king has many challenges There was no skull. Imposing authority through Was this a coronation is importantritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. And William is right to worry. While the previous king It's difficult as Ruth knows, Haroldbut Nelson doesn't, that she is dead and pregnant with his child as a result of the likelihood of more pitched battles is overone night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, the rebels are stirring and much of the country does not wish least because Ruth is prone to recognise a new overlordsudden bouts of sickness.|isbn=1800422466
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00085063370008551324|title=The Garnett GirlsDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Georgina MooreNeil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard OIt'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sidess unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Margo was just sixteen when they fell Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in love. Richard was twenty-one prison and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richardhe's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going prepared to Oxford tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and having a glittering careerwho was responsible for her death. In the eventThis person, he promises, they eloped is someone big and Richard took her away from it will be worth the Isle of Wightpolice doing what he wants. Margo did go And what he wants is to Oxford be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and went on to become a well-respected journalistget an early parole date. The couple had three children: RachelNot much to ask, Imogen and Sasha. is it? Life was lived in London The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Wight. Even then the doubts about Richardshe's drinking were never far even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from Margowhat's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''. Then Richard left themhappening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Vanda Symon0008405026|title=Expectant A Stranger in the Family (Detective Sam ShephardMaeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Detective Sam Shepherd is approaching the start of It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her maternity leave when there is a brutal, shocking murder of an expectant woman in Dunedinbed one summer night. Suddenly she finds herself embroiled in She was never found and the hunt for investigation ground to a killer targeting pregnant womenhalt. Now, her mother, Helena, with all the extra pressure that entails being pregnant herselfand her father are dead in their bed. Finding herself put on desk dutiesInitially, which she rails against, she just canit looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there't let s something about the case go positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and she starts her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to follow every thread to uncover whatbe an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's actually happeningboss, and the increasingly disturbing worry of just what might happen nextUna Burt) are less convinced.|isbn=1914585577
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291259600571379877|title=Unnatural HistoryThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonathan KellermanJonny Sweet|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Donny Klement was Edward Jevons is a photographer. Wellworking-class young man, it was Adonisobsessed with his upper-class friends, actually, but Donny had stuck unless he got Danny but whichever - itRobert and Stanza. Robert's past tense as his PA found him dead in his beda theatre director. Three shots were placed neatly through his heart. The PAHe's also self-obsessed, Mel Gornickdemanding, is distraught handsome and entitled and it falls uses Edward to psychologist Alex Delaware to calm her down whilst Lieutenant Milo Sturgis gets more agitated as run errands for him. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he tries to establish what's happeneddrunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Donny Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had just finished a series of photographs called ''The Wishers''. He'd taken eight homeless people off the streets and asked begun between them what theybut he'd really s not like most men: Edward is left to be. They were then dressed up as their fantasy, photographed and sent on their way with stumble upon the two of them kissing in a generous gift in dollarsdark passageway.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Robin Birch and Jobe AndersonJo Callaghan|title=Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver StreetLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Jayden's nose When a man is forever in a book, which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – found crucified on the phoenixes and unicorns top of the worlda hill in Nuneaton, for example. Aisha is addicted DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her new tabletsidekick, where she can see videos of anything that might be out therethe AI detective Lock. The problem, as It's their mothers see itfirst live case together, is that they are never 'out there' themselves, exploring the outside world of Hackney, Londonhaving previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a narrowboat turns up carrying second body found crucified a science-mindedfew days later, educational purpose, and Kat is suddenly struggling with a past involving Jayden's cousin, they find potential serial killer and a magical world they never knew existed. For many of those mythological creatures are real, including the one Aisha thinks she's seen on very high profile case that draws a bit lot of local footageunwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. The crew of Will they be able to solve the boatcase in time, including a living gargoyle, are tasked with saving or will Kat find herself taken off the rare critters – case and the kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed to join in. Dare they side with Leila, the woman on board, and her relative who lives as a figure in a paintingpotentially, and become saviours out of the unseena career?|isbn=0241573483139851120X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=19138396561399613073|title=Let's Celebrate Being DifferentMoral Injuries|author=Lainey DeeChristie Watson|rating=34.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=Todd was excited about spending the weekend with his grandmother, not least because she made the best beetle juice. He packed two pairs of dungarees and his favourite hat and then gathered together his button collection to show his grandmother. She had promised to take him to the Friday Night Club at the local community centre and Todd was pleased about this as he wanted to make new friends. At home, his only friend was his mum and he wondered why that could be. Grandma thought that it might be because he looked different.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1787301036|title=What July Knew|author=Emily Koch|rating=5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=When we Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first meet July Hooper on 20 July 1995 she's just ten years oldday of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. She's Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be a careful, meticulous childcardiothoracic surgeon. The care has been taught by her father, Mick Hooper, who Laura is not prepared to discuss the death of his wife, July's mother, a perfectionist and any hint that the conversation a trauma doctor. Anjali is heading that way will lead to the necessity free spirit of the group and she becomes a LessonGP. Other infractions of his requirements also lead to these Lessons When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and heit's not even careful about whether or not the injuries are visiblegoing to end in tragedy. JulyWe don's teacher is concerned and brings up t know who suffered the possibility of abuse with tragedy or the head but her worries are dismissed: Mick has been good to consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the schoolthree friends. This time, has he not? The playground wouldnit't have been resurfaced but for hims their teenage children who are involved.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lucy Ashe0241636604|title=Clara and OliviaThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionAutobiography|summary=The year is 1933. The place? SadlerIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you's Wellsre unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. Ballerinas Clara A hoodie and Olivia are sistersjeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, twins where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no less. Identical posh public school on the outside his CV - but not, we learn, on he had been to the insideLondon School of Economics. And not on stage, either. Because there's Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a lot that builds a dancerfacility with numbers which most of us can only envy. Some things He also realised that can most rich people expect poor people to be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the classroomstupid. A stage presence It was his ability at what was, a charmessentially, a ''joie de vivre''card game which got him an internship with Citibank. The difference between a hard-worker Eventually, and this turned into permanent employment as a startrader.|isbn=0861544080
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00084544931035021803|title=All the Dangerous ThingsThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=Stacy WillinghamC L Miller|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Isabelle Drake hasnIt't really slept for a year - well, apart from s twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the odd occasion when English country village where she lost track of time or drifted off for a momentgrew up. ItShe's back now because of a year since request for help from her sonbeloved aunt, MasonCarole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, was stolen from his bed in the middle of the night and Izzy is consumed with guilt that she heard nothing dead and particularly about her relief in the morning when she thought he was sleeping incircumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. In that year she's done everything she could Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to raise awareness about the casevillage: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. She does interviews and when we meet herEven though they were in business together as antique hunters, she's just been has not felt able to TrueCrimeCon where be near the man or pursue the profession she gave a keynote presentationloved. On After the plane backsplit, she's approached by worked in a podcastercafe, Waylon Spencermet and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, who points out that she could do a podcast was murdered) and Freya and get to so many more people than she could by giving speeches to a few hundred people at conferencesJames have now divorced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy GreeneAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Fritz All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and KurtStephen Oram (Editors)|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=We start with ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the pair shape of brothers Fritz and Kurt, and their muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the empty market place, helping the neighbours, being dutiful when come.'' I've heard it comes to the synagogue choir and at a vocational school. Kurt has to make sure the lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbourssaid that 'technology' is what happens after you' each Friday night – the Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a light switchre eighteen. But this is the time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's willWell, and instead I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of having a national vote to keep the Nazis out, invite them technology in with open armsmy lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what'Kristallnachts advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did s all the roundgetting away from me. Some of it is - frankly -ups of Jewsquite frightening. These in their turn leave Of course, I could research the younger Kurt at home with his mother possibilities and sisters anxious to hear word of an evacuation to Britain or the US, while Fritz and his father are, unknown initially to each other, packed off on the same train to Buchenwald probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the stone quarry therelatest conspiracy theorist. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could come about…|isbn=024156574Xunderstand.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529421241Sunny Singh|title=Stay Buried|author=Kate WebbHotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=CrimeThrillers |summary=DI Matt Lockyer The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on Major Crime Review which sounds quite grand until you realise that it's actually site, there is Sam, a cold case unit wartime photographer and there are just two of them doing Abhi, the jobhotel manager. Lockyer's not unduly worriedAs Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, though although heforms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's not quite so sure about DC Gemma Broad: she's probably capable of something betterhappened through her photography. It was a bit of a shock when he got Although they only ever talk over the phone call from Hedy Lambert: she's in H M Prison Eastwood Park for murder - and it was Lockyer who put her there, fourteen years ago. She's keen their friendship grows as Abhi tries to see him help her keep safe and they both wait to tell him that see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the man everyone thought she'd murdered - but the body turned out to be someone else - has returned home after being away for decadesterrorists.|isbn=086154742X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0BQXSYYTF1529153298|title=Just LookingThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Matthew TreeJennie Godfrey|rating=4.5|genre=Dystopian General Fiction|summary=It was the summer of 2035 's 1979 and on a cruise ship in MarseillesMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, Jim was celebrating his new-found wealth and the end of his marriage - not two celebrations generally found in the same sentence by a man! honestly...) HeShe's watching the tornado - theynot what're more common in Europe these days - thats worrying Miv's keeping the cruise ship in port and falls into conversation with Jean-Pierrefamily, a French journalist in his thirtiesthough. Women have been disappearing. He writes for a relatively new paperWell, they've been murdered, the right-wing but to have 'disappeared'La Tribune Gauloisedoesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv' and hes upset because she's interesting if a little wordy on subjects such as overheard that her father wants to move the difference between family 'FranceDown South' and . When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the Frenchmove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. His partner, Helen, whoShe's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's English and Jewish, keeps him in check stopped talking - to some extentanyone.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=057137493X1398524085|title=The Other HalfHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Charlotte VassellNicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=''The room Charlotte Salter was full of the sort of people expected at her husband''Tatler'' thinks you should know.'' ''The Other Half'' is the story of two men, both with what looks like the same surname. Rupert Beauchamp is the heir to a baronetcy and his thirtieth s fiftieth birthday party is a catered-with-butler event at McDonalds in Camden Townbut never turned up. Think Bollinger Her children, sons Niall, Paul and cocaineOllie and her daughter, Etty. His surname is pronounced 'Beecham'. Caius Beauchamp is a detective inspector with the Metropolitan police and is biare all worried but - strangely -racial. His surname her husband, Alec, is pronounced as you see itnot. The two encounter each other when CaiusShortly afterwards, out for a runEtty and Greg, stumbles across find the body of Clemmie OGreg'Haras father, Duncan Ackerley, Rupert's girlfriendin the river. Rupert thought that she It was being deliberately late an easy assumption for his partythe police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. She was dead under a bushThe 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=Joe Thomas1035906708|title=White RiotDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary= Whenever anyone writes fiction about politics there's always the danger We tend to think of making it too reactionary; too raw. Knee-jerk observations Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and hot takes that don't age well or properly capture the spirit of the momentonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. It takes a truly talented writer Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to be able 'Callas' to capture make it more manageable in the zeitgeist of a particular event or era of political historyStates. Austerity Britain, the student riots, Donald Trump, Brexit – When she was back in Athens - supposedly so much of what is, and has been, written in that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the immediate aftermath of these phenomena has been proven Nazi occupation by time to be frothy a mother who mercilessly exploited her and insubstantial and ultimately not particularly powerful or incisive. Inevitably (and perhaps disappointingly made no secret of her preference for people who do enjoy fiction of this nature)her elder sister, the best writing about current political events is that which is written when the events in question are no longer current and when time and experience has afforded the writer the benefit of a more objective viewJackie.|isbn= 1529423376
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Heather FawcettChristopher Edge|title=Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of FaeriesBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary=Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie loreLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, and she a place that has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia nickname of faeries'The Black Hole'. Whilst she is brilliant at research All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and speaking to faeriesmany, she is not so good with people. many snacks! So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of HrafvsnikHowever, having somehow offended as the village matriarchmovie starts, she they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is not sure what she has donevery different, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to Emilythey are swept up into an adventure they couldn's frustrationt even imagine. But why is he here? What does he want? And as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what exactly on earth is going on with ? Will they ever get back to the faerie folk around Hravsnikcinema, and to their real lives?|isbn=03565191201839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1848458436Rachel Greenlaw|title=Just the Nicest Couple|author=Mary KubicaCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersTeens|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The whole thing has spiralled out call of controlthe deep, turning into someone I'm notthe answering beat in my heart.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1914585402James Sherwood Metts|title=Dashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F RossPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary=I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] Things have been a couple of years back bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and affecting it wasother tasks that took time to accomplish. It was a grippingJust as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, emotionally wounding readnew ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and rereading my review of , along with it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise , all the many daily social interactions on itwhich they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=178563335XMatthew Tree|title=Sea Defences|author=Hilary TaylorWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicarTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, sitting in on a PCC meeting drunk and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the children up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishionerwho had endless crises of self confidence. Thelma's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a lovely place, but Rachel is struggling So Tim applied himself to develop a real bond with the parish - and she's in awe of the vicar, Gailhis studies, but then she's been doing the job for more cultivated his abilities rather than thirty years. Rachel his daydreams and Christopher hoped that a walk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy set himself high but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missingachievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Hadeer ElsbaiA G Slatter|title=The Daughters Briar Book of Izdiharthe Dead|rating=45
|genre=Fantasy
|summary= Drawing inspiration from Egypt, ''The Daughters There's a part of Izdiharme 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.'' explores Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the lives of two women who could not be more differentworld, yet find themselves fighting for lies Silverton; a town under the rights protection of women and weavers – those with magical abilities - in a society pitted against them. Nehal, born into the upper classBriar's, wishes to attend a family of witches who protect the Weaving Academy to learn to control her abilities town and then join the militarywider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, but instead she Ellie Briar is forced into an arranged marriage with Nico. Giorgina on the other hand did not have a privileged upbringing like Nehal and feels great pressure first non-witch to provide be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her family training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and maintain their reputationpotions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, whilst secretly attending meetings of the Daughters of Izdihar – a group campaigning for womentown's rightsleader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. Giorgina also happens As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to be in love communicate with Nico. What follows is the dead, putting her at the heart of a story maelstrom of an unjust societychaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, filled with hypocrisy Ellie must decide who to trust and crueltydetermine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, from which blossoms a group of admirable women fighting for their rights and overcoming their personal obstaclesis under threat.|isbn=03565204711803364548
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sarah Todd Taylor1529900360|title=Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Spoonful of SpyingThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=[[Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for Trouble by Sarah Todd Taylor|Last time around]], Alice Eclair It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had to prove herself as a spy been badly injured but he felt responsible and as a master at all things French and fancy and fondanteven after Alex recovered, as the only way Sturgis was reluctant to save the day involved being an expert baker and icer ask for his help on the French railwaysdifficult cases. Here, we start on a bateauHis assertions that there were only open-mouche in Paris, and even though the espionage isn-shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a complete success it proves to Alice and her handlers that things are afootwhile. And there will never be more feet than at the WorldFinally, it was Robin, Delaware's Fairpartner, reviving who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the huge expo involvement was something that gave the city man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the Eiffel Tower heir to an Italian shoe empire and this time showing all her interwar glories off she is married to an extremely rich man and it's not the worldItalian. Once again Alice will have But which of them was the primary target?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to present follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the front to strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the world opportunity of being doing work experience with a family friend who was a humble yet world-class cake decoratorvet and was convinced this was the job for him. Before long, while seeking out clueshe was at Liverpool University. At stake? It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. Pioneering flight technology that the enemy just cannot If anything, he'd wanted to be allowed to smuggle out…|isbn=1839940972a professional footballer.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Amanthi Harris0861541774|title=Beautiful PlaceA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=54|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary= PadmaDCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, a young Sri LankanDanny Maik, has returned taken a short holiday in Singapore to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home countrymeet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. This is Maik was involved in a place she spent her formative yearsstreet brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. It is not Initially, he faced a place she was born into, charge of manslaughter but the one she thinks of as home. How she evidence came to be at the Villa, how it became her home, and the machinations light that suggested that he might have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide planned to murder the ''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novelman. Now he could be facing the death penalty. Padma's present fails Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to escape her past help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and much like the musical score of a film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens wouldn't help Danny at the Villaall.|isbn=1784631930
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{{Frontpage
|author=Nigel BainesAlexander McCall Smith|title=A Tricky Kind of MagicThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Emerging ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Cooper loves The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to perform magic tricksall the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. His father was a magician, Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and named Cooper look after the great Tommy Cooperbusiness, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. But sadly Cooper's father died suddenlyKatie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and now Cooper doesn't quite know who so jumps at the chance to be, or how come home to beEdinburgh. And when his dad's prop rabbit starts talking 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 himcharm. Katie has no experience in running a business, he ''really'' doesn't know whator in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's going on anymore!always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=14449602611846976596
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15420372390811771741|title=Death in HeelsInstaKnits for Baby|author=Kitty MurphyMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeCrafts|summary=Set against the backdrop of DublinMelissa Leapman's drag scene, ''Death in HeelsInstaKnits for Baby'' tells the story gives us a collection of Fi McKinnery and her best friend, Robyn, who is about knits from toys to debut as drag queen Mae Bblankets. What is meant to Some will be a night quick knits - others are of excitement soon takes a downward turn when fellow drag queenthe 'long, Evecosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. The projects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, takes five to the stage ten hours, ten to mock Mae Btwenty hours and more than twenty hours. As if All the night could not get any worseprojects are attractive, modern and useable. I perhaps show my age when Fi heads home she discovers Eve dead in I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny is having a gutterterrifically bad day. Fi is adamant 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 his home, and it's possible that Eve whoever or whatever was murdered, yet inside is the drag communitything that has trashed his house! The thing is, and Benny is the Guards, accept it as an accidentvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. Fi takes So fortunately for Benny it upon herself turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to solve the mystery as she fears help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for her friendsbeing a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, but instead ruins relationships as she delves deeperand 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.|isbn=1662500491
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1800465270Adam Stower|title=The Lensky Connection|author=Conrad DelacroixMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers |summary=When we first meet Major Valeri GrozkyMurray is supposed to be a humble, it's June 1995 tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and he's at , well, whatever takes his fancy next of the Serafimov Cemetry in St Petersburgtwo. HeBut he's a pallbearer for bad magician's cat, so his elder brother, Timurfavourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, whose death was drug-related. Valeri and Timur's fatherthe catflap they both use can chuck them out, Ketonot into the regular back garden, is also but into a pallbearer world of frightening adventure and he's disgusted by what his son had becomewhiffs. Valeri thinks differently: he's determined to make his own stand against organised crime and avenge Timur's death. Within This time round it drops them into a matter of monthsViking land, his obsession will have cost him his marriage to Marisha and created where a dubious link with Natassja Petrovskayatroll hunter is expected – well, a journalist. She's determined to expose any and all corruption - and she's less concerned one much bigger than she ought Murray was, to be about her own safety. To herhonest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=0008561249}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0C47LV1PC|title=Fragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Can you make a good source. For him''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it's a way to get information published? Or is the question if you did, which wouldn't otherwise would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be possible.... no. ''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=13997022891529431735|title=A World of Curiosities (Chief Inspector Gamache)The Winter Visitor|author=Louise PennyJames Henry|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=After a harsh winterIt's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the tiny Canadian village of Three Pines is enjoying the arrival of springmore surprising. But something is worrying Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir of He'd been exiled on the Sûreté du QuébecCosta del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. Gamache The return has come about because he's had offered help to a young woman after the murder of her mother: he'd been less certain about her charismatic brother. For Jeanletter from his ex-Guywife, it had always been the other way around. Now theysaying that she're both in the village s ill and neither can fathom whathasn's happeningt long to live. Armand will soon find that theyIt're not just in Three Pines but in s hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his home underwear and sent to a watery grave in his lifethe boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0BHR8KWSKAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Dukkha|author=Martin HydeThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=HorrorConfident Readers|summary=Sam wakes up chained Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a basement. He rails against helper at the dessert cafe his captor gran owns and the injustice of runs. Eli lives with his imprisonment? Why? ''Why?'' But of courselovely gran, he knows whytoo – for there is a generation missing in the family. Sam is an erstwhile drug dealer who escaped this down and dirty life by going A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the titular race, a retreat and emerging as globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of a neophyte Buddhist monkmagical beast. Recently returning This has made the race anathema to join the community in his old neighbourhoodpair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, he knew Eli knows his past would be hard only hope is to escape but dare to enter what he hadn't imagined it exploding into this new life in quite such a violent fashionmost hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231
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