Difference between revisions of "Forthcoming Publications"

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[[image:Bookbag-banner-obooko1.jpg|center|link=https://www.obooko.com/]]
 
 
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=='''27 APRIL'''==
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=='''25 APRIL'''==
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
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|author=Lauren Bravo
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|author=Sylvie Cathrall
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|title=Preloved
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|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep
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|rating=4
 
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|genre=Women's Fiction
 
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|summary= Gwen is pressing her middle-aged bosom on a big number that starts with a four and ends with an oh-my-God-I'm-nearly-forty.  Having been made unexpectedly redundant - any HR officer worth their salt would argue the toss - Gwen finds herself having a bit of a mid-life crisis.  Catharsis is key and Gwen has decided now is the time to take back her life'
 
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|isbn=1398510629
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
 
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|isbn=1804545600
 
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|title=The Monk
 
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|author=Tim Sullivan
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
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|genre=Crime
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|genre=Science Fiction
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|summary=The body in the woods near Bristol was a nasty shock - a monk strapped to a chair and dumped in a ditch.  He'd been savagely beaten. It's a while before D S George Cross and the Major Crime Unit establish that this is Father Dominic.  He'd been missing for a few days and certainly hadn't asked permission to leave his abbey.  As the team gradually unpick the monk's past it becomes clear that he'd been well-loved as an investment banker, brother, neighbour and friend.  He'd also been very wealthy but had given it all up for his faith.  Why would someone savagely murder him?
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|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.
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}}
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|isbn= 0356522776
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=='''11 MAY'''==
 
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{{Frontpage
 
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|author=Jenny Lund Madsen and Megan E Turney (translator)
 
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|title=Thirty Days of Darkness
 
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|rating=3.5
 
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|genre=Thrillers
 
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|summary=Hannah presents as an unlikeable, bitter woman, an author of failing if well-regarded literary short novels.  Sorry to leave her bottles of red wine behind her for an afternoon at a book fair, she flukes her way into a public argument with the latest hot shot in the world of crime fiction, saying he's populist trash and only writing what anyone could write.  Cue the bet that she cannot live up to that accusation. Her publisher duly books her flights from Denmark to Iceland, where she is put up for a wintry month away from it all.  Just on the point of despairing – about her writing, about the people and the lack of stimulus for her plot, more or less about everything – word comes that the landlady's nephew has been found dead…
 
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|isbn=1914585615
 
 
}}
 
}}
 +
=='''9 MAY'''==
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
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|author=Emily Critchley
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|author=Tom Percival
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|title=One Puzzling Afternoon
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|title=The Wrong Shoes
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|rating=4
 
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|genre=Crime
 
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|summary=84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory.  However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago.  After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her.  And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life.  Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?
 
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|isbn=1804181250
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
 
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|author=Lex Croucher
 
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|title=Gwen and Art Are Not in Love
 
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|rating=4
 
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|genre=Teens
 
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|summary=Who knew that what I really needed to read right now was a gay Arthurian RomCom?  But honestly, it lifted my spirits in a most delightful way.  In this story, Gwen and Arthur have been betrothed since they were tiny, much to their mutual disgust!  Gwen, you see, is in love with Bridget (the kingdom's only female knight) - something that Art discovers from her private diaries.  And then when Gwen then catches Art kissing a boy they find themselves becoming reluctant allies, creating the subterfuge of falling in love with each other, when really they are enabling their own other romantic attachments.  But as their impending wedding draws ever closer, will they find a way in which they can both truly be themselves, or are they destined to live a lie their whole lives?
 
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|isbn=1526651793
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
 
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|author=Madelaine Lucas
 
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|title=Thirst for Salt
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
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|genre=Literary Fiction
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|genre=Confident Readers
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|summary= ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''
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|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways.  He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident.  Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction.  And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
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|isbn=1398527122
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Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.
 
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|isbn=0861546490
 
 
}}
 
}}
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=='''25 MAY'''==
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=='''23 MAY'''==
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
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|author=Thomas D Lee
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|author=Onyi Nwabineli
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|title=Perilous Times
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|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself
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|rating=3
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|rating=4.5
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|genre= Fantasy
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|genre=General Fiction
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|summary= ''Hate is the path of least resistance''
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|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain.  Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so.  Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire.  Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?
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|isbn=0861546873
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Set in the near-distant future, in a world on the verge of climate collapse, Britain is in great peril. The British Isles desperately needs a hero (or several) to save the day and rescue what little remains. What no one expected was that one of the Knights of the Round Table would answer the call.
 
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|isbn=0356518523
 
 
}}
 
}}
 +
=='''6 JUNE'''==
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
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|author=Laura Noakes
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|author=Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton
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|title=Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
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|title=Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
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|summary=Meet Number One.  Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate.  Or rather, just Cos to her friends.  The practice in the home she lives in is for the girls to just be named by the number they correspond to in the ledger, and they're all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon.  But Cosima bears the tag as a surname because nothing else seems to be known about where she came from, as the first ever inmate, and unique in having no known family in the outside world.  During a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the kitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to adopt all the girls for his Institute.  But why, and what does that body entail?  And could it possibly bring Cos closer to the past she has so little link with?
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|summary=Meet Kit.  Like most of the people in his world, it seems, he is an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the sport where a team of warrior, mage and healer enter specially prepared, century-old, magical mazes, and race to the exit, perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and the points they grant you along the way.  Unfortunately for Kit, the only thing he's seen of the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, eaten, and a new trio of questors is needed.  Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to the goading from the token bully of his world and stumbled into declaring he'll enter as a team.  What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, and how could he possibly hope to succeed?
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|isbn=0008579059
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|isbn=1839945184
 
}}
 
}}
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=='''30 MAY'''==
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=='''13 JUNE'''==
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
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|author=Mark Edwards
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|isbn=1635866847
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|title=Keep Her Secret
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|title=The Lavender Companion
 +
|author=Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
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|genre=Thrillers
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|genre=Lifestyle
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|summary= Matthew and Helena are in Iceland, rekindling their university romance some twenty-odd years after they first met.  The alien-landscape of the lava fields and black beaches is breath-taking and Helena seems intent on getting the perfect photograph to encapsulate the joy she is feeling in this moment, even if it kills her… which it nearly does when the edge of a ravine gives way and Helena finds herself clinging to the rockface with just the snagged strap of her rucksack between her and a 500 foot drop to certain death below.  Convinced she is going to die, Helena must purge herself of the shocking secret she has been keeping and makes a panicked, cryptic declaration to Matthew.  Just moments later their heroic, and frankly very well prepared, Icelandic tour guide swoops in and hauls Helena to safety and Matthew is left wondering what he just learned about Helena.
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|summary=It's strange, the things that make you ''immediately'' feel that this is the book for you.  Before I started reading ''The Lavender Companion'', I visited the author's [https://www.pinelavenderfarm.com/ website] and there's a picture of a slice of chocolate cake on the homepage.  I don't eat cakes and desserts - but I wanted that cake viscerally.  (There's a recipe in the book, which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book and I was told to make a mess of it.  Notes in the margins are sanctioned.  You get to fold down the corners of pages.  You suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem.  I ''loved'' this book already.
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|isbn=166250893X
 
 
}}
 
}}
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=='''8 JUNE'''==
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 +
=='''4 JULY'''==
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
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|author=Amanda Craig
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|author=Max Boucherat
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|title=Three Graces
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
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|genre=General Fiction
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|genre=Confident Readers
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|summary= Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her characters in a way that feels natural and lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.
+
|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome.  What could possibly go wrong?  Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky.  For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering.  When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?
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|isbn= 140871468X
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|isbn=0008666482
 
}}
 
}}
 
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Revision as of 09:18, 8 April 2024

25 APRIL

0356522776.jpg

Review of

A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall

5star.jpg Science Fiction

There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them. Full Review

9 MAY

1398527122.jpg

Review of

The Wrong Shoes by Tom Percival

5star.jpg Confident Readers

Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Full Review

23 MAY

0861546873.jpg

Review of

Allow Me to Introduce Myself by Onyi Nwabineli

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time? Full Review

6 JUNE

1839945184.jpg

Review of

Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial by Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton

4star.jpg Confident Readers

Meet Kit. Like most of the people in his world, it seems, he is an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the sport where a team of warrior, mage and healer enter specially prepared, century-old, magical mazes, and race to the exit, perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and the points they grant you along the way. Unfortunately for Kit, the only thing he's seen of the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, eaten, and a new trio of questors is needed. Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to the goading from the token bully of his world and stumbled into declaring he'll enter as a team. What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, and how could he possibly hope to succeed? Full Review

13 JUNE

1635866847.jpg

Review of

The Lavender Companion by Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci

4.5star.jpg Lifestyle

It's strange, the things that make you immediately feel that this is the book for you. Before I started reading The Lavender Companion, I visited the author's website and there's a picture of a slice of chocolate cake on the homepage. I don't eat cakes and desserts - but I wanted that cake viscerally. (There's a recipe in the book, which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book and I was told to make a mess of it. Notes in the margins are sanctioned. You get to fold down the corners of pages. You suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem. I loved this book already. Full Review

4 JULY

0008666482.jpg

Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn? Full Review

You can work your way through the newest review, category by category, starting here.

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