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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=='''8 SEPTEMBER'''==
+
=='''9 MAY'''==
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09SGWCXQ8
+
|author=Tom Percival
|title=The Night Watch (D S Max Craigie)
+
|title=The Wrong Shoes
|author=Neil Lancaster
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|summary=Fergus Grigor went out for a run. The lawyer was on his honeymoon but his body was found dashed to pieces below the cliffs at Dunnett Head. Was it suicide, or did he - for some reason - climb over the stone wall and fall to his death? Or was he pushed? On balance, it looked like an accident but then his 'accident' was linked to the deaths of others associated with him. Scott Paterson was released after a 'not-proven' verdict meant that Scotland's most notorious criminal wasn't facing life imprisonment. Paterson was Grigor's last client.
 
}}
 
=='''10 SEPTEMBER'''==
 
{{Frontpage
 
|isbn=194241028X
 
|title=Azabu Getaway (Detective Hiroshi)
 
|author=Michael Pronko
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''You can't put 'good at golf' on your tombstone, can you?''
+
|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 accidentThrow into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every directionAnd yet, he still has a tiny amount of hopeHe 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.
 
+
|isbn=1398527122
When we meet Patrick Walsh he's outside his family's home in the Azabu district of Tokyo, hoping that his key will still work but prepared to break in if it doesn'tHe's there to remove his daughters, Jenna and Kiri, and take them back to Honolulu.  It's a quick day trip, with just one purpose in mindPatrick's employed by Nine Dragons Wealth Management and for the past year, he's been working in Wyoming because the privacy laws there are conducive to the business he's inHis wife, Miyuki, hasn't been in Wyoming with him and is in the process of divorcing him after photographs sent to her anonymously suggested that Patrick had not been faithful to her.  Patrick's plan didn't work out and he finds himself on the run in Tokyo with the two girls.
 
 
}}
 
}}
=='''19 SEPTEMBER'''==
+
=='''23 MAY'''==
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1739593901
+
|author=Onyi Nwabineli
|title=22 Ideas About The Future
+
|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=5
+
|genre=General Fiction
|genre=Science Fiction
+
|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 gainNow 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 herAnuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing soMost importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empireCan she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?
|summary=''Our future will be more complex than we expected.  Instead of flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.''
+
|isbn=0861546873
 
 
I've got a couple of confessions to makeI'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a few stories and then forget to return to the bookThere's got to be a very compelling hook to keep me engagedThen there's science fiction: far too often it's the technology which takes centre stage along with the world-buildingIt's human beings who fascinate me: the technology and the world scape are purely incidental.  So, what did I think of a book of twenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, I loved it.
 
 
}}
 
}}
=='''22 SEPTEMBER'''==
+
=='''6 JUNE'''==
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher Bowden
+
|author=Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton
|title=Mr Magenta
+
|title=Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of indulgence to a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an obligation to find it all out.
+
|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?
|isbn= B0B6Z9VJDW
+
|isbn=1839945184
 
}}
 
}}
=='''6 OCTOBER'''==
+
=='''13 JUNE'''==
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Alison Hughes
+
|isbn=1635866847
|title=Fly
+
|title=The Lavender Companion
 +
|author=Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=This is a very impressive read, as it does a lot of what mainstream teen and tween fiction still struggles withIts focus is courtesy of the first-person narration from Fly, a secondary school lad with cerebral palsy, a down-on-her-luck single mom nearing retirement from being a cleaner, a carer while at school, and a bundle of assumptions people lay on himFirst they assume that with a broken body comes a broken mind, then they decide he's a maths savant – they even believe they can get away with calling him Fly, which isn't his real name, but everybody just uses it.
+
|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 pagesYou suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem.  I ''loved'' this book already.
|isbn=1525305832
 
 
}}
 
}}
=='''13 OCTOBER'''==
+
 
 +
=='''4 JULY'''==
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Lilja Sigurdardottir and Quentin Bates (translator)
+
|author=Max Boucherat
|title=Red as Blood
+
|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|rating=4
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=Thrillers
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When Flosi’s wife goes missing, all the evidence seems to point towards her having been kidnapped. The ransom note tells him not to have any contact with the police, so instead he enlists the help of Arora, a financial investigator. She manages to persuade Flosi that they will need the help of the police, and she calls her detective friend, Daniel, whom she met when he was investigating her sister’s disappearance. Together, they start to secretly investigate Gudrun’s disappearance, trying not to arouse the suspicion of anyone, since they have no idea who the kidnappers might be, yet the more they uncover, the more confusing things become.
+
|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?
|isbn=1914585321
+
|isbn=0008666482
}}
 
=='''21 OCTOBER'''==
 
{{Frontpage
 
|author=Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams
 
|title=The Book of Hope 
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|summary= The done thing is to read a book all the way through before you sit down to review it. I’m making an exception here, because I don’t want to lose any of the experience of reading this amazing book, I want to capture it as it hits me. And it is hitting me. This beautiful book has me in tears.
 
|isbn=024147857X
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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Revision as of 13:12, 24 April 2024

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.