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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Amanda DownumSylvie Cathrall|title=The Drowning CityA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=3.5|genre=FantasyScience Fiction|summary=In There are few greater joys than a nutshell, you're reading this because you're wondering whether The Drowning City is good, bad or mediocre. You've probably glanced at the rating and guessed the latter. I'm afraid it's not quite that simple. This is book which lives up to a debut that provokes decidedly mixed feelingscompelling premise. I started off convinced that I was going to love And this book. The cover art is effortlessly cool, the premise intriguing, the characters laden with potential for greatness and the backdrop is certainly evocativeone of them.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841498149</amazonuk>0356522776
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tove Jansson0008517061|title=The True DeceiverDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=54|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Most people of my age will have come across Jansson's work unwittinglyFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, via the televised renditions of the Moomin taleshas settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. The readers amongst us would then have been entranced There’s perhaps a few years ago to discover that at last Thomas Teal had set little uncertainty about the translation into Englishfuture of his life with his vet girlfriend, first of The Summer Book Livia and then of her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a collection lot of short stories which were published as 'A Winter Book'compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the future she wants for herself and her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on the back burner. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954899571</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Daniel Kehlmann 1786482126|title=Me and KaminskiThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=After reviewing several long books, it's been refreshing Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to read such a fluent yet pared down story as hold seventy-five 'Kaminski and Meluxury'. In it, Sebastian Zollner, apartments - when they discovered the obnoxious main character, shoves himself forward in bones of a desperate attempt to research child beneath a best seller which will re-ignite his career as an art criticdoorway. Kaminski, the proposed subject, There was no skull. Was this a fashionable painter long agoritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but nowNelson doesn't, ancient and chronically ill, has virtually slid into oblivionthat she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. So the second-rate writer Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is on a loser unless he can dig up some juicy details prone to hook the art world and general publicsudden bouts of sickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847249892</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Louis Barfe0008551324|title=Turned Out Nice Again: The Story of British Light EntertainmentDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=EntertainmentCrime|summary=Light entertainment 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 often looked down upon, as if itstruggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a bit naffmissing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, tepid he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and ignorableto get an early parole date. What's often forgotten Not much to ask, is that it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's hugely popular, enjoyable even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and much of it anyone who works with him is of the highest quality. Louis Barfekept well away from what's Turned Out Nice Again tells the complete story of British light entertainmenthappening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843543818</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jim Helmore and Karen Wall0008405026|title=Oh No, Monster Tomato!A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=45|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Marvin is entering the Great Grislygust GrowIt's sixteen years since nine-year-Off, but just like him, his tomatoes aren't growing very bigold Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. He takes She was never found and the only sensible course of action: he sings his tomatoes investigation ground to a songhalt. The results Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are spectaculardead in their bed. Victory is surely within his grasp.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140524741X< Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joseph Delaney |title=The Spooksuicide but there's Stories: Witches|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary='Warning: Not to be read after dark,' are something about the only words on the back positioning of ''The Spook's Stories'', and on the inside flap, 'The Times' warns us bodies that this book is 'seriously scary'makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious... The whole thing kicks What looked as though it was going to be an open-off relatively tamely, though, with a story about a young Spook (a sort of monsterand-hunter) who falls in love with shut case is now a witch and complex double murder. Kerrigan is forced to bear convinced that the consequences when the witchexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's sister comes to stay and exhibits a taste for the neighbor-childrenboss, Una Burt) are less convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0370329961</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lisa Unger0571379877|title=Die For YouThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=BestEdward Jevons is a working-selling novelist Isabel Connelly is married to successful video game designer Marcus Raine. Or so she thinks. But when her husband fails to return from workclass young man, she realises something is wrong. Going to obsessed with his office to try to find out what happens to himupper-class friends, she gets attacked Robert and ends up in hospital, while his co-workers are killedStanza. Things get worse for her, however, when investigating detective Grady Crowe reveals that Marcus Raine has been dead for several years, and the man she married was using Robert's a false identitytheatre director. Infuriated by the betrayal, and the realisation that she He's been living a lie for the past five yearsalso self-obsessed, demanding, Izzy takes matters into her own hands handsome and sets out to find her husband entitled and work out why he lied uses Edward to her run errands for so longhim. Ignoring police warnings, she delves deeper and deeper into a nasty underworld, and finds a tale which Edward has its roots been in Prague love with Stanza since their university days - and rivals anything she could have plotted he's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Most men in one 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 her novelsthem kissing in a dark passageway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099522179</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lisa McMannJo Callaghan|title=WakeLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Janie When a man is seventeen and studying hard for college. She's also working lots found crucified on the top of hours at a local nursing home hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to earn money for college as it's unlikely the case alongside her alcoholic mother is going to provide much in sidekick, the way of resourcesAI detective Lock. College is Janie It's only chance at their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a life better than 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 one she's lived so far and so you can't blame her for being so single-minded case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the pursuit case and, potentially, out of her goal. Only one thing stands in her way...a career?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847385036</amazonuk>139851120X
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=I shall start with a word of advice. When you're being hounded by a circus masterOlivia, Laura and a magician, for Anjali met on the soul first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a tiger that's contained in quarter of a tiger's egg that's contained in the brain of your teddy bearcentury. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, and your best friend - a fallen angel - which is trying her best to make sure the other angels do not turn on you in a big way - then bonus when you're probably living the third book in aim to be a fantasy trilogycardiothoracic surgeon. Still - never mind, the angel's efforts will involve you entering Laura is a dream world of flight perfectionist and cloud cities, a trauma doctor. Anjali is the chase after your enemies will take you across free spirit of the world to desert oases group and back, and friends new and old will be on board to helpshe becomes a GP.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847384447</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sue Townsend|title=Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Adrian Mole is now 39¼ When we first meet them they're at a drug and living, quite literally, in a pigsty, sharing an all too thin alcohol-fuelled party wall with his parents and working in a bookshop. Itit's not quite how life was supposed going to turn outend in tragedy. As he spends his days wrestling his strong willed 5 year old Gracie into her school uniform, trying to reassure glamorous wife Daisy that life in the provinces is not as bad as she would like to believe, and desperately attempting to talk his mother out of her quest to appear on the vile We don''Jeremy Kyle'' show, worrying over his increasingly frequent visits to t know who suffered the toilet is really tragedy or the last thing he needsconsequences. And yet, Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the worst is still to comethree friends. Think a crumbling economy This time, redundancy, affairs, death, a family member challenging him in the novel writing stakes and a query over the big C – it's going to be a tough year for the Moles, and there's little that ol' Adrian can do except sit back and watch his life spin out of control around himtheir teenage children who are involved.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lauren Kate0241636604|title=FallenThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensAutobiography|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 17 year old girl at a new school meets a mysterious hoodie and impossibly goodjeans replaces the pin-looking boystripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, who she's immediately drawn poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been tothe London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He seems determined also realised that most rich people expect poor people to either ignore her or be outright rude to herstupid. It was his ability at what was, until he saves her lifeessentially, and the two of them end up drawn togethera card game which got him an internship with Citibank. This isn't Stephenie Meyer's ''Twilight'' Eventually, but it certainly has striking similaritiesthis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385738935</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gareth Hinds1035021803|title=King Lear|rating=3|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Hound me out of town in a most appropriate manner, but I do not like King Lear. For me, even as a trained actor, the language is too dense and rich, the set-up too archly unfeasible to create the great tragedy itThe Antique Hunter's thought Guide to be. To my mind the acclaim and esteem in which it's held is only mirrored by its own over-long, over-blown blustering.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0763643440</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMurder|author=Paul Theroux|title=A Dead Hand: A Crime in CalcuttaC L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Set in India, familiar territory for Theroux, It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She'A Dead Hand'' tells the story s back now because of a travel writer suffering request for help from writerher beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's block (also known as former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead hand') until a chance letter from an American ex-pat, and the mysterious Mrs Ungercircumstances seem suspicious, relating a story of a mystery of a dead body in a hotel leads him to release his creativity in very unexpected wayssay the least. The story is more about obsession and infatuation than it is about Arthur was the mystery itself as reason why Freya had not been back to the narrator falls under Mrs Unger's Tantric charmsvillage: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. But does Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she have more has not felt able to hide than be near the man or pursue the profession she's letting loved. After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
}}
{{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=Steven Lowe and Alan McArthur Sunny Singh|title=Is it Just Me or Has the Shit Hit the Fan?: Your Hilarious New Guide to Unremitting Global MiseryHotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=HumourThrillers |summary=''The banks fell over like fat Labradors running Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a wet kitchen floorterrorist group.'' Surely that Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is the wackiestSam, most inappropriate simile for the credit crunch a wartime photographer and all it has done for Abhi, the worldhotel manager. You won't get any such namby-pamby animal likenesses from these authors, instead with quite a potty mouth on them they will lambast As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the modern world, residents who are still alive in the entire banking systemhotel, all those he forms a bond with Sam who failed refuses to see it comingbe cowed by events, and those millions just seemingly waiting for us all keeps on venturing out of her room to revert try to high-interest, high-risk, high-lending capitalism, so capture what's happened through her photography. Although they can get back on only ever talk over the expenses trainphone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and back up they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the rich liststerrorists.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847443656</amazonuk>086154742X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andy Stanton1529153298|title=What's For Dinner, Mr Gum?The List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=As soon as heroine Polly turns her back, It's 1979 and leaves the town of Lamonic Bibber for a day at the seasideMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, Mr Gum falls out with his best friend, causing carnivorous carnage all over the placehonestly... ) Meat is getting thrown around like itShe's not what's worrying Miv's going out of fashionfamily, and we though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to doubt whether Polly and have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her companions can ever utilise father wants to move the power of love family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and put things she'll do anything to rightsprevent that. Especially as this book does She's not contain a magic unicorn called Elizabethworried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405248246</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Loose Women1398524085|title=Here Come the GirlsHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=45|genre=Home and FamilyCrime|summary=This Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the second volume by the panelists from that nice ITV seriesbody of Greg's father, ''Loose Women''. Just as promised on the coverDuncan Ackerley, this book is an entertaining night with in the girlsriver. It turns out was an easy assumption for the police to make that they're just like us. The faces are already familiar Duncan had murdered Charlie and even if you donthen committed suicide when he couldn't know them yet, with nine contributors, you'll soon find a like-minded woman behind one of stand the celebrity facesguilt. The women Salter children are universally warm-hearted and supportive: not convinced but there will be many a lonely woman who reads this book 's little else they can do but get on with their lives and feels as if she sat down with a group of friends for the eveningwonder about what really happened.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444700154</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jean Ure1035906708|title=Fortune CookieDiva|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''I can hear the song of the sea. She loves The call of the ice and deep, 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 answering beat in Fairbanksmy heart. However, things aren't all rosy. Cassie's mother died when she was just a baby and she can't help feeling a huge hole in her heart. Her scientist father is remote and unloving and her grandmother left the station after an argument with him when Cassie was still very young. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847386571</amazonuk>}}
}}
|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 EDCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl -Mails can be incredibly annoyinghe would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but most of us will evidence came to light that suggested that he might have had planned to deal with themmurder the man. Fortunately, we can hit Now he could be facing the delete button and forget about them as quickly as they camedeath penalty. I certainly prefer not Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to torture my friends by sending such rubbish on, no matter how bad my luck is supposed to become if I donhelp as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn'thelp Danny at all. But I wonder how many of us would react if a spam E-Mail actually was a matter of life and death, rather than just claiming to be?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007079</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeanette WintersonAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Battle of the Sun|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=London 1601. Elizabeth I is getting on in years. Her capital city is a busy, bustling place. Boats fill the river and people fill the streets. 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 a jumping and a tummy in the air and a tail wagging and a barking, racing, braking, spinning energy dog of delight''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>140880042X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jean Ure|title=Love and KissesPerfect 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>
}}
{{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 down to Sheep to save the day...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340989424</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kes Gray and Lee Wildish|title=Mum ill and Dad Glue|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=A young boyhasn's parents are splitting upt long to live. He It's going through the usual emotions that children of divorce go through: worry, feeling unsure, blaming himself, angerhard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, denial, and then trying stripped to get them to stay together. His method for this isn't the usual response though: he looks for glue to stick his mum underwear and dad together. Thankfully, he finds some wise and kindly advice sent to a watery grave in the processboot of a stolen Ford Sierra.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340957107</amazonuk> Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Clara VulliamyAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Bear With Sticky Paws Won't Go To BedGlorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=ItEli 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 few short years ago, Eli's Pearl's bedtimeparents were both lost to the titular race, but she says she's really busy and isn't going a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to sleepnavigate the world in the company of a magical beast. She just wants This has made the race anathema to play and play and play. When the bear with sticky paws rings pair – but when a bad incident at the doorbelleatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he whisks her away on an amazing adventure - although as you might expectmost hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the bear has a little more energy than Pearl and eventually she does get a little sleepyonly thing to possibly save his gran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408300648</amazonuk>0571382231
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