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==The Best New Books==
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{{Frontpage
|author=Paul B Preciado
|title=Dysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=''It is never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood''
Through this hybrid text, consisting of arias, letters, essays and autofiction, Preciado expresses his own hybrid self, and brings forth a new sensorium as an offering to the new generation, a new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a sign of political apathy. Rather, it is the proportional, valid response to ''the epistemological and political crack we are living through, and the tension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''. The whole text is framed against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to emerge on a global scale, or as ''pangea covidica''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews . Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a sign of books about weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to be published]]''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''.<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->|isbn=1804271454}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241989027Samantha Harvey|title=We All Have Our Secrets|author=Jane CorryOrbital
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Harold Gentle advertised In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for live-''Orbital'', a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in help as he was failing to cope at Willowmead House on his ownthe lives of a group of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. His advert was fairly specific: he was Through a retired lawyer needing help but he also spoke of narrative lens that mirrors the ability astronauts' orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to cook see our planet in a good steak, enjoy decent wine and be free from any food fadswholly new light. The first person who came |isbn=1529922933}}{{Frontpage|isbn=295967572X|title=Pale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and what the house was Francoisepurpose of this journey is, a French woman in her early twenties, who fit the bill perfectlyis uncertain. She got Django found the job but Francoise didntickets ''t know about on the advert: she was there for a completely different reason. Emily Gentle is Haroldfloor somewhere''s daughter and she came has persuaded our narrator to Willowmead House because she was running away from a problem accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in London. Emily's a midwife and her last shift had seen her lacking concentration the past as the pair travel to the station by coach and the train is a complaint had been madesteam locomotive.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=0008551324|title=Ewald Arenz and Rachel Ward The Devil You Know (translatorD S Max Craigie)|titleauthor=Tasting SunlightNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Sally It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a teenager missing person is buried and who has run away from an anorexia treatment clinic. She just wants space, and was responsible for people to stop questioning herdeath. This person, tiptoeing around herhe promises, is someone big and trying to fix her without ever truly understanding herit will be worth the police doing what he wants. She finds herself on some farmland with a woman called Liss who And what he wants is in her forties to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and seems to live aloneget an early parole date. Liss is unlike any other adult Sally has ever met. She just accepts Sally as she is, giving her a room Not much to sleep inask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and the space she's even prepared to just be. As they work together on do the farm, a closeness develops between them, becoming a beautiful, powerful friendshipother thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|isbn=1914585143
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jennifer MasonJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell MysteryVaim
|rating=4
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a womenAll was strange''s track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia...'' This is just a sample of haunting phrase encapsulates the cast pervading sense of characters otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, a fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and settings in Preposterous. As you can seeEline, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise two of this mystery story goes like this..the protagonists caught in its melancholic current.|isbn=B09STS96HS1804271829
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Will Brooker1035043092|title=The Truth About Lisa JewellKilling Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves
|rating=5
|genre=BiographyCrime|summary=Meet I can't have been the only person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[:Category:Lisa JewellWild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|Lisa Jewellleft Shetland]], one of the most successful British authors I've never knowingly readto start a new life on Orkney. Now meet Will BrookerIt's been seven years since we heard from him, one of the thousands of less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This book starts but he's now living with the two meeting each otherWillow Reeves and their young son, James, as wellas Cassie, and shows how 2021 drew the two closer and closer togetherdaughter of his former partner. The meeting was some unspecified combinationWillow's also his boss, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, the words of her latest book and she was reciting, and her being in a ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocadeshould'' (certainly be on maternity leave, but when the body of a get-up never commonly worn at the author events I get to attend)popular islander, Archie Stout, but pulled Brookeris found, in the aftermath of a professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthesstorm, down the rabbit-hole that is Jewellshe can's diverse outputt resist getting involved. Brooker decides he He'd like nothing more than to follow her through a year in been battered about the published author's life, working to make head with a success Neolithic stone - one of the latest title, and struggling with the next in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is the resulta pair - which had been stolen from a museum.|isbn=1529136024
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1801109265Thea Lenarduzzi|title=The Companion|author=Lesley ThomsonTower
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=James Ritchie thought of himself as ''a punctual man who was inexplicably never on timeHow unctuous are the fats of another'' and he was - as usual - late to pick up his sons life, Wilbur, for how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream'boys' day out'. These were always days which appealed more to James than to Wilbur and In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, competing for the boyprotagonist of this tale. Just as T's attentionstory is being told, his mother, Anna, promised him the story of a roast dinner when he returned. The dinner would never be servedsecond protagonist is unveiled: Annie, as James and Wilbur are the victims daughter of a double stabbing on wealthy family in the beach. The case falls to DI Toni Kemp 19th century, who died of Sussex policetuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T's imagination. SheAnnie's feeling the pressurefate is, above all, an enticing story to T. You can always tell - It is a story which she shoplifts Snickers Bars when the going gets toughconsumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and knowledge, and in service of myth, fable and fantasy. |isbn=1804271799
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=152941363XClaire-Louise Bennett|title=To Kill a Troubadour (A BrunoBig Kiss, Chief of Police Novel)|author=Martin WalkerBye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=''Nobody knows what the truth Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is any moresteeped in anguish and distortion.'' Bruno Courrèges is the police chief for St Denis Even a kiss, usually a symbol of intimacy and much closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. When the Vézère valley and works closely with Commissaire Jean-Jaques Jalipeau (known as narrator cries out internally, 'JJ')come over here and kiss me, the head of detectives for the départment of the Dordogne. They're not just policemen - they're both deeply committed it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to the well-being and prosperity of this most beautiful part of Franceconfirm her emotional numbness. The discovery imagined recipient of an oldthis plea is Xavier, stolen Peugeot, crashed and abandoned in a ditch wouldn't normally have worried them so much had it not been for the strange bullet, with Russian letters stamped on the base, which they found in the car. Oh, and there was a golf ball tooher ex-partner, which didn't belong to the owner of the car. A golf bag would be a good place ghost she conjures to hide a sniper's weapontest her detachment. Was there going to be an attempt to kill someone, or were the detectives being pushed in a certain direction?|isbn=1804271934
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=02415424050008405026|title=Meredith AloneA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Claire AlexanderJane Casey|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=When we first meet Meredith Maggs itIt's Wednesday 14 November 2018 and she's not left sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her home for 1,214 daysbed one summer night. She'd ''like'' to: in fact, she so nearly does. Her outdoor clothes are on was never found and she's even considered which shoes the investigation ground to wear if she's going to catch her traina halt. ThenNow, she can't. She simply can't force herself to leave the safety of her home. She's fortunate that she has a good friendmother, SadieHelena, who visits regularly with and her two children, James and Matildafather are dead in their bed. SadieInitially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's a cardiac nurse something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and full of sound common senseher boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. In fact What looked as though it was Sadie who gave Meredith her cat, Fred. Groceries are online deliveries going to be an open-and there's also an internet-based support group where you'll find Meredith as JIGSAWGIRL, so you can guess what she does in her spare timeshut case is now a complex double murder. Then Tom McDermott arrives. HeKerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's from Holding Hands, a charity which supports people with problems disappearance: others (such as MeredithDerwent'sboss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09Y451X9K|title= Greetings, aliens!: Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (do pop in for teatranslator)|authortitle=Richard F WalkerThe Other Girl
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionAutobiography|summary= ''Anything can happen at a birthday party, particularly when We were born from the birthday boy is the young Lord of the Manorsame body. But when an eerie signal is picked up in the early hours, George and his new girlfriend, the vivacious Lady Antonia, embark on a quest I've never really wanted to uncover its incredible message. Things get complicated when some total spoilsport lets the cat out of the bag and the world goes into a state of panicthink about this.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Darren ShanMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title= Archibald Lox Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=Biographies are often seen as the form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and offers a vibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. In the Sinkhole first section of this book, Tolstoy complains to Hellhis friend Gorky that: Archibald Lox series''you write not of real life as it is, book 7 but of what you yourself imagine it to be. Whom would it help to know how I see this tower, that sea, or that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''. Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a subjective account, giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=1804271977}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529077745|title=The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Ann Cleeves
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary= So. We're back to A man walking his dog in the Merge with early morning discovered the first chapter body of a man in the third volume of Darren Shan's saga of Archibald Loxpark near Rosebank, a young care home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who can pick was due to work a shift the locks of portals from our world night before but who had never turned up. D I Vera Stanhope is called in to another, called investigate the ''Merge''. Since his last adventure, Archie has persuaded his foster parents into a slightly uneasy truce on murder - but her only clue is the topic disappearance of his regular disappearances. They don't ask too many questions and Archie has settled into a fairly peaceful routine one of visiting Winstonthe residents, his lockfourteen-year-picking mentor in old Chloe Spencer. Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl''Merge'' and showing Kojo, the young guardian, around our world of the Borns diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh. |isbn= B09Z2MTCZD
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=John Henry PhillipsB0FK5LHKD9|title=The SearchColour of Memory|author=Christopher Bowden|rating=54|genre=HistoryGeneral Fiction|summary=Archaeology cannot be childIt's play, when you're scraping in the dirt looking to find what you can find, often knowing there should be something there but not always confident what. Archaeology must be been three years since we last reviewed a fair bit harder when you set out to find some specific thing. This book is a case of the latterby favourite regular Christopher Bowden, as our author promises so we were very glad to locate the topic of the titular searchsee a new novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. And he really hasnLike all Bowden't made it easy for himself – the search area is a wide ones stories, the target might not exist any more – oh, and itthere's underwater, when he cannot dive. Latching on to a particular D-Day veteran through helping mystery at the heroic old manheart of ''s visit back to France, our author has promised to find the landing craft that delivered him to Normandy, and that he was lucky to survive when it sank from beneath him. The secondary aim is to erect a memorial to everyone else aboard, the vast majority Colour of whom perishedMoney''. Who else would make such promises to someone We like this running theme in their nineties?|isbn=1472146182an author's work - take a mystery but give it different flavour and atmosphere each time.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Fiona LongmuirOlga Tokarczuk|title=Looking for EmilyHouse of Day, House of Night
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Meet Lily. She and her mother have just moved from a city to ''What's the good of a tiny seaside town called Edge, and everyone from said mother to her teacher are making demands of Lily world that she make new friends. It turns out keeps changing like that she doesn? How can one go on calmly living in it?'' The title of this spellbinding work, 't have any say in the matter'House of Day, for while pretending when phoning home that she was with someone called EmilyHouse of Night'', she is unaware her neighboursomewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the small, Samsubtle changes which govern our lives, is just about like the shift from day to make herself knownnight, however quotidian, and in a big waycausing chaos. But where does Emily come from? Well, Lily used the constant in that name because of what she'd just stumbled into – a mysterious collection of image is the most mundane objectshouse, in stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|isbn=1804271918}}{{Frontpage|isbn=henleyA|title=Ultimate Obsession|author=Dai Henley|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=Ex-DCI Andy Flood has been a Private Investigator for some converted houses behind time now, and he should be doing quite well financially. Unfortunately, his daughter's defence against a most unassuming doormurder charge drained his savings. His wife, Laura, in a place calling itself has been trying to persuade him to retire - 'The Museum of Emily'maybe go travelling or go on cruises. Sam is completely unaware of this That's what 'museumordinary people do', too, leaving '' He's not been entirely up front about the two girls state of their savings. When Jack Durban tries to make sure they leave no stone unturned in finding whatpersuade him to take his case, it's behind the intrigue..thought of the money he could make that convinces him that this is a miscarriage of justice that he really should put right.|isbn=1839942754
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09XZMCDVF1836284683|title=Stories: 13 tantalising talesThe Big Happy|author=Richard F WalkerDavid Chadwick|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesDystopian Fiction|summary=''A news vendor Well! This is crying out the headlines in the middle of the night; a wheelchair user loses touch with reality when he tries walking around in his imagination; a stickler for correct grammar goes back in time to correct an iconic quote; a volunteer teacher proves the ideal person to have around in a lawless village; the new boy on the pub football team is very useful with his feet, and awfully familiar…''murder mystery unlike any other!
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1800901232Sally Rooney|title=Stitched Up|author=Steve ColeIntermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyGeneral Fiction |summary=Twelve-year-old Hanh wanted to be Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a fashion designergrandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Life in Among the rural village where she lived with her family was happy, if not prosperousmany relationships woven into this story, so when the smartly-dressed man and woman came central one for readers to unravel is the village to offer Hahn a job in Hanoi it was an opportunity not to be missed. Some money changed hands fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Hanh was on the mini-bus to HanoiPeter Koubek. OnlyIvan, Hanh and the other girls were not going to work in a shopsocially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, they were to work a successful lawyer living in virtual slavery in an illegal garment factoryDublin. You know those jeans you really wanted: the ones with intricate embroidery and beading on the legs? The ones Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the artfully-placed rips and distressed seams that felt so soft when you touched them? Itbrothers's quite possible that Hanh and her co-workers made themalready strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Daisy Hildyard1036916375|title=EmergencyJust a Liverpool Lad|author=Peter McArdle
|rating=4
|genre=Literary FictionAutobiography|summary=The summary of this book doesn't come close to explaining what 'Just a Liverpool Lad '' is done with the premise.|isbn=1913097811}} {{Frontpage |author=Sally Oliver |title=The Weight a collection of Loss |rating=4 |genre=Literary Fiction |summary= Marianne is grieving. Traumatised after the death of her sister, she awakes to find strange, thick black hairs sprouting memories and reflections from the bones of her spine which steadily increase years Peter McArdle spent growing up in size and volumearound Liverpool. Her GP Some are factual, diagnosing such as the odd phenomenon as family history of a physical reaction to her griefsea-going family, recommends she go to stay at Nede, an experimental new treatment centre in Waleswith the docks dominating lives. Yet something strange is happening to Marianne and Other stories blend seamlessly into the other patients at Nede: a metamorphosis of a kindwhat-might-have-been. As Marianne It's a book to settle into and allow your mind to roam across your childhood memories threaten , to overwhelm herthink of simpler times when life seemed less constrained, Nede offers her release from this cycle despite the blitz that was a constant factor in McArdle's early years. I'd never heard of memory parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and pain—but only at a terrible price: that of identity itselfcould appear after the all-clear was sounded.|isbn= 086154112X
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Kjell Ola Dahl and Don Bartlett (translator)1836285493|title=Little DrummerThe Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating=35|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Part Will is a keen player of the Oslo Detectives seriesvideo games, a conscientious student, this crime story is a mixture of police procedural slightly annoying brother and thrillera supportive friend. Beginning with the death But most of a young woman in a carparkall, that looks very much like he is an overdose, it unravels into a far-reaching investigation of murderaspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at his school, fraudMarlowe Park, and international pharmaceutical dealingsone at which he excels. Our two detectives are Gunnarstranda This hasn't gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and Frolich, who end up working separately on the case as Gunnarstranda remains in Norway whilst Frolich is led she has suggested to Africa as they follow the twists Will and turns his mum that he spends a couple of the investigation. Gunnarstranda and Frolich are tenaciousafternoons a week at a different school, chasing down the truth in increasingly difficultStation Road, frustrating circumstances, trying hard to uncover the truth as they are sure that something much bigger, and much more dangerous, is going onwhere his ability might be better extended.|isbn=1914585127
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00085414771009473085|title=Clarice Bean: Scram!The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Lauren ChildAnthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersPolitics and Society|summary=It was Sometimes it's simpler to explain a hot summer day right at the beginning of the summer holidays book by describing what it ''isn't'' and Clarice Bean was boredthat applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''Nothing ever happens except . If you're looking for sometimes... And only an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on rare-sh certain occasions, which is hardly ever.then this isn'' There are seven members of t the Bean family living in the house: Grandad (who lives on the ground floor because hebook for you. If that's wobbly)what you're looking for, Mum and Dad, ClariceI don't think Anthony Seldon's older brotherbook, Kurt and younger brother{{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, Minal Cricketcan be bettered for those tumultuous years. ThereIt's also Marcie, a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone whothinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. It's main claim to fame seems to be that she steals the batteries from Clarice's torch, seventh book in a series which means that she can't read in looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the airing cupboardmost important. Clarice would love to have someone who listened to herThis book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, rather than wanting to talk, but the only one who does changes that is Granny occurred and she lives the situation in New York. The Bean family is ''different''2024.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0711266204Jenny Valentine|title=The Secret Life of Birds|author=Moira Butterfield Us in the Before and Vivian Mineker (illustrator)After
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-FictionTeens|summary=I have recently discovered a great pleasure: I sit Elk and watch the vast numbers of birds which visit our garden on a daily basis. An hour can pass without my noticing. I've established which species feed from the groundMab are best friends, or more than that even, which pop to the feeders for their friendship is a quick snatch of some food and who settles once in for a good munch but I wish I was more knowledgeablelifetime connection. It would have been wonderful if, They meet as children one day on a child, I'd had access to a book such as ''The Secret Life of Birdstrip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the time. So – what is it?But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together.|isbn=1471196585
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17370309421787333175|title=Bag OYou Don'Goodiest Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Jolly Walker BittickBenji Waterhouse|rating=45|genre= AnthologiesPopular Science|summary=Sometimes, you deserve a treat and mine I was Jolly Walker Bitticktempted to read 's 'You Don'Bag Ot Have to be Mad to Work Here'Goodies'after enjoying Adam Kay'. I s first encountered his writing about a year ago, when I read his [[Cape Henry House by Jolly Walker Bittickbook {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|Cape Henry House]]title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a rollicking tale glorious mixture of insight into the workings of what happens when five young men find a base for their partyingthe NHS, humour and autobiography. Right now, I didn''You Don't want Have to be Mad...'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a full-length novel, so psychiatrist. I turned did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this anthology of verse setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and short stories. Bittick's writing has matured - it is always delivered with empathy and so have his characters. Wellunderstanding... most of them!
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Caryl Lewis and George ErmosMariana Enriquez|title=SeedA Sunny Place for Shady People
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersShort Stories|summary=Marty has two parental figures in his lifeMariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, and they both might be thought achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of as complete embarrassments. His grandfather runs disused refrigerators due to an allotmenturban planning mishap, an overcrowded homeless shelter and manages to stink the entire town out from it when he douses it in fish guts each spring to fertilise his vegetablesa crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. His mother somehow combines the dual roles The circumstances of housebound failure and hoarder – while she seems to do nothing and hasn't left the building in years she has still managed to fill it to the brim with junk. What Marty's classmates don't know about this they can draw lines to from how poor Marty always looks, with his one school uniform built from lost property. We see him as once again the council threaten her and him with eviction, and as he celebrates his birthday with characters are so plausible that the gift from his grandfather of supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a solitary plant seedsimilarly tangible texture.|isbn=15290776641803511230
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sophie Cameron1529934753|title=Our Sister, AgainThe Protest|author=Rob Rinder
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=After IslaFor a little while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, the country's older sister Flora diesmost famous living artist, her family struggle was not going to find a way forwardshow up for the opening of his retrospective at the Royal Academy. In particularStill, he arrived in the nick of time, Isla's mum who can’t seem to be able to let her daughter gocomplete with his two wives and six children, one of whom filmed what happened. When Isla passes her mum's details onto a support group she finds online Being an influencer, she thinks they might be able you tend to help. But actuallydo things like that, but it turns out they are part was fortunate that there was a record of the protest. Lexi Williams, an experimental company who offer intern at the family RA, grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a chair and proceeded to spray Bruce in the chance to have Flora back againface, in robot formwhilst shouting ''Stop the War''. But this won It seemed to be part of an ongoing series of 't just be a lookblue-a-like. They use all of Floraface's online historyattacks, and interviews but this was different. The can had been laced with family and friendscyanide, and through this data they will recreate Flora as closely as possibleSir Max Bruce was dead. But what will it really mean for the family, to have Flora back? And is it really Flora at all?|isbn=1788953916
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1398507504Ariel Saramandi|title=Cold Reckoning|author=Russ ThomasPortrait of an Island on Fire
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimePolitics and Society|summary=DS Adam Tyler never believed that his father committed suicide In this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, tunneling deep into the wounds left by colonialism and for slavery to expose how these legacies still shape modern life. Saramandi describes the last sixteen years hecountry at one stage as 's been searching for evidence to prove that he's right. When a frozen body was found in Damflask Reservoir, there was a link back to a cold case from 2002. There didnrotting't immediately seem to be any connection with DI Richard Tyler's death but Adam Tyler senses , a link to blunt yet apt metaphor for the systemic decay brought about by the case his father was investigating before he diedmalignant forces of racism, patriarchy, environmental degradation and governmental dysfunction. Above all there's Each essay in this collection serves as a growing sense that kind of diagnostic, charting the criminality of Det Supt Stevens is going to be brought out into various diseases afflicting the openisland state. Perhaps Tyler is going to get the answers he needs?|isbn=1804271616
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0727850547Pekka Harju-Autti|title=Blind Justice (DS McAvoy 10)|author=David MarkLoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeFantasy|summary=Acting DI Aector McAvoy hadnIt't even had s the eighteenth century, a time for breakfast when the call came throughof discovery and Britain is expanding its foreign trade. A body had been found in the roots of a fallen tree at BrantinghamCaptain Julius Hawthorne, an experienced Scottish sea captain, near Hull. When he gets is sent to the scene, he will find what greets him is even worse than he could have imaginedAndaman Islands in his endeavour. A young man's corpse is entangled Along with the roots of a newly-fallen tree – the roots have grown through him – his son, Peter, and two silver Roman coins have been nailed through his eyes. It would seem that this was done whilst the man was still alive. McAvoy makes their cat, Michi, they set off on a promise perilous voyage to the victim: I will find answersthese faraway lands. You will know justice. But justice always comes at a cost The islands are beautiful and stunning in their scenery and this time the cost might be islanders' leader, Aarav, is keen to McAvoy's own familyestablish good relations.|isbn=B0DS1VGHH3
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|author=Natalia Garcia FreireHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=This World Does Not Belong To UsLili is Crying|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Early comments on First published in 1953 in French, this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. I will agree with the first – tremendous is no understatement – but 'a delight' is perhaps using timeless text which wrenches the expression in a way I'm not familiar with. I have to confess my ignorance hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the Spanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation herepage and positions them elsewhere, disjointed, truncated. From Like the little I have read (in translationlives of her characters, I don't read Spanish) there does seem to be a tendency towards the fantastical – the mystical realismthey are often left tragically incomplete. |isbn=08615419011804271675
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|author= Ann Sei LinTom Percival|title= Rebel SkiesThe Wrong Shoes|rating= 5|genre= TeensConfident Readers|summary= Kurara has spent her entire Will's life as a servant on the Midoriis difficult, in a massive dining hall floating in the sky where soldiers multitude of the Empire come to drink and make merry between their conquestsways. However, when a man named Himura arrives to tell her that she He is a Crafter like him, someone with bullied because he has 'the power to form paper into whatever she desires – a power sought after all across the Empire. He asks her to come with himwrong shoes', to leave he has the life of dreary servitude that is all she has known. Well, soon Kurara wonwrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have any say in enough money for even the mattermost basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the Midori is destroyed by college, was working a monstrous paper spirit known as cash-in-hand job on a shikigami, building site and she is forced to flee out had an accident. Throw into that mix the worldfact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. She joins Himura aboard the Orihime And yet, he still has a sky-ship whose express purpose tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to hunt down shikigamithe moments of joy when he is drawing, and that feel like a whole world light at the end of adventure awaits her…a long, dark tunnel.|isbn=14063995901398527122
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|author=Patrice LawrenceSylvie Cathrall|title=NeedleA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=35|genre=TeensScience Fiction|summary=Brave. Charlene, the 'heroine' of this piece is extremely hard for some people to like, characters and readers both. Kicked out of multiple homes and schools, she's fostering with There are few greater joys than a pleasant yoga tutor, Annie, and has taken book which lives up residence in her son Blake's old room while he's at uni. Such a tempestuous personality may be in need of a comfort blanket, you might perhaps think, and the creation of one such item is part of the plot here, as Charlene is a wonder knitter, and is making something full of love for her younger sister – to a younger sister she's allowed contact with no more. We see Charlene prove her belligerence with a store detective, and then force people to give her two days off school, when she shouts someone down as expletively ignorantcompelling premise. And then... well, what exactly happens this is not for me to say, only to remark how sharp and pointy those knitting needles can be..one of them.|isbn=18009010110356522776
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|isbn=14059409801786482126|title=The BirdcageJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Eve ChaseElly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=ItBuilders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury's apartments - when they discovered the 7th bones of January 2019 and we know that a body has been pulled out of the sea at Zennor in Cornwallchild beneath a doorway. We don't know whose body it isThere was no skull. Four days earlier, Flora, Kat and Lauren had gathered at Rock point at the request of their father, Charlie Finch, Was this a famous artist. ritual killing or murder? The girls are actually ''half''-sisters and their dates of birth are embarrassingly close. Finch was known for his fecundityInevitably, if not for his fidelityDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's been difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a long time since result of the girls have been at Rock Point one night they spent together: just over twenty years some three months ago, at the time of the total eclipse, something happened. Kat and Flora were obviously involved but Lauren was a victim and it's left her very wary Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of her sisterssickness.
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|isbnauthor=1787634906Guadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=No Less the Devil|author=Stuart MacBrideThe Accidentals
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeShort Stories|summary=We're This collection was truly enchanting in Oldcastle all senses of the word: spellbinding with its fantastical, magical elements and Malcolm is charming in trouble. He's in an abandoned house its gentle portrayal of nature and he's being threatened by two young peoplehuman relationships. One is Allegra (we'll soon learn that she's Allegra Dean-Edwards) Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and Hugo. It seems that Allegra bought Malcolm a new coat to keep him warm (she often does this for homeless peopleprecisely, apparently) but she'd put her stories structured by a tracking device in it so wisdom that she and Hugo could find out where he was sleeping. It won't be long before the police realise that Malcolm was one of their own: not many other people are going appears to want to have teach us something about the Oldcastle police crest tattooed on their backsworld.|isbn=1804271470
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|authorisbn=Jennifer Saint0008551375|title=ElektraWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Leanne Wilson'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells s body was found at the story bottom of three women who live in a Scottish mountain, seemingly the heavily male-dominated world result of Ancient Greecea tragic accident. Cassandra She'd looked so happy, Clytemnestratoo, and Elektra are all bit players in the story when she posted her intentions on Facebook. Her friends were relieved as she was just out of the Trojan Waran unpleasant relationship, but it looked like she was living her best life now. Yet Jennifer Saint shows us Then it emerged that often the silent five other women have had died in similar circumstances in the most compelling stories last year. All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and sensible people. None of the 'what a stupid thing to do' explanations applied. They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's a killer on the most extreme furiesloose.|isbn=1472273915
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