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==The Best New Books==
'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''
{{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
|author=Lev Parikian Samantha Harvey|title=Light Rains Sometimes FallOrbital
|rating=4.5
|genre=Animals and WildlifeGeneral Fiction|summary= If you’re a writer yourselfIn 2024, or an aspiring writerSamantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Orbital'', or someone who pretends to write, then you know a compact yet profound work that there are unnumbered types unfolds over a single day in the lives of a group of booksastronauts aboard the International Space Station. Some you read for fun, some for distraction, some for vicarious emotionThrough a narrative lens that mirrors the astronauts' orbital perspective, some Harvey invites readers to learn from see our planet in a random way, some for focussed research, and some because they are, broadly speaking, the kind of thing you think you might like to write. Or, indeed, are actually trying to writewholly new light.|isbn=17839663861529922933
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0751581577295967572X|title=Lying Beside YouPale Pieces|author=Michael RobothamG M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Elias Haven murdered Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his parents and his twin sisters two days after his nineteenth birthdaycompanion Django. Voices told him to do it. Only two people survived the carnage - Elias, who was sent to Rampton, Where they're going and his thirteen-year-old brother, Cyrus, who hid in a shed until what the police found him. Twenty years laterpurpose of this journey is, Cyrus is a forensic psychologist and heuncertain. Django found the tickets ''s been told that his brother is being released. Can Cyrus forgive on the sinner whilst having floor somewhere'' and has persuaded our narrator to live on a daily basis with accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the results of past as the crime? Can he bear pair travel to have Elias living in the same house? How will his lodger, twenty-one-year-old Evie Cormac, cope?station by coach and the train is a steam locomotive.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=140595115X0008551324|title=A Stranger on BoardThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Cameron WardNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Right It's unusual for anyone from the beginning, we know this will not turn out wellHardie family to approach the police. Eight days into Neither side likes or has any respect for the trip other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to deliver tell the police where the superyacht ''Escape'' to Antiguabody of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, all 300 tonnes is someone big and six decks it will be floundering without power in worth the Atlanticpolice doing what he wants. Those And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of the crew who are left will be cowering in fear a fellow crew member tries his sentence and to pick them off, one by oneget an early parole date. Some are already dead. Not much to ask, is it? They are three days from shore The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and there anyone who works with him is no way of making contactkept well away from what's happening. But let}}{{Frontpage|author=Jon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Vaim|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''All was strange''s go back to when all ... This haunting phrase encapsulates the pervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this startedstory set in Vaim, a fictional fishing village in SouthamptonNorway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and Eline, two of the protagonists caught in its melancholic current.|isbn=1804271829
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=13985086321035043092|title=The Wilderness CureKilling Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Mo WildeAnn Cleeves
|rating=5
|genre=LifestyleCrime|summary=It had I can't have been on the cards for only person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a while new life on Orkney. It's been seven years since we heard from him, but it was he's now living with Willow Reeves and their young son, James, as well as Cassie, the week-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year daughter of eating only wild foodhis former partner. The end Willow's also his boss, and she ''should'' be on maternity leave, but when the body of Novembera popular islander, Archie Stout, is found, particularly in Central Scotland was perhaps not the best time to start, in aftermath of a world where the normal sores had been exacerbated by climate changestorm, Brexit and a pandemicshe can't resist getting involved. Wilde had a few advantages: He'd been battered about the area around her was a known habitat head with a variety Neolithic stone - one of terrains. She had electricity which allowed her to run a fridge, freezer and dehydrator. She had a car pair - and fuel. Most importantly, she which had shelter: this was not been stolen from a plan to ''live'' wild just to live off its producemuseum.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1635864674Thea Lenarduzzi|title=Tomato Love: 44 Mouthwatering Recipes for Salads, Sauces, Stews, and More|author=Joy HowardThe Tower|rating=45|genre=CookeryLiterary Fiction|summary=''Think How unctuous are the fats of it as no-whining dining.another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241989027Claire-Louise Bennett|title=We All Have Our Secrets|author=Jane CorryBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Harold Gentle advertised for live-Everything in help as he was failing to cope at Willowmead House on his own. His advert was fairly specific: he was a retired lawyer needing help but he also spoke of the ability to cook a good steakthis book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, enjoy decent wine is steeped in anguish and be free from any food fadsdistortion. The first person who came to the house was FrancoiseEven a kiss, usually a French woman in her early twentiessymbol of intimacy and closeness, who fit the bill perfectlybecomes evidence of love lost. She got When the job but Francoise didnnarrator cries out internally, 't know about the advert: she was there for a completely different reason. Emily Gentle is Harold's daughter come over here and she came to Willowmead House because she was running away from a problem in London. Emilykiss me,''s it is less an invitation than a midwife and desperate attempt to confirm her last shift had seen emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her lacking concentration and ex-partner, a complaint had been madeghost she conjures to test her detachment.|isbn=1804271934
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=0008405026|title=Ewald Arenz and Rachel Ward A Stranger in the Family (translatorMaeve Kerrigan 11)|titleauthor=Tasting SunlightJane Casey|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Sally is a teenager who has run away It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from an anorexia treatment clinicher bed one summer night. She just wants space, was never found and for people the investigation ground to stop questioning a halt. Now, hermother, tiptoeing around herHelena, and trying to fix her without ever truly understanding herfather are dead in their bed. She finds herself on some farmland with Initially, it looks like a woman called Liss who is in straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her forties and seems to live aloneboss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Liss is unlike any other adult Sally has ever met. She just accepts Sally What looked as she though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is, giving her now a room to sleep in, and the space to just becomplex double murder. As they work together on Kerrigan is convinced that the farmexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, a closeness develops between them, becoming a beautiful, powerful friendshipUna Burt) are less convinced.|isbn=1914585143
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jennifer MasonAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell MysteryThe Other Girl
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionAutobiography|summary=''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in We were born from the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a womensame body. I'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..ve never really wanted to think about this.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Will BrookerMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=The Truth About Lisa JewellReminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating=3.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of Biographies are often seen as the most successful British authors I've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brooker, one of the thousands form of life-writing which offers less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This book starts with the two meeting each other, colour; it can be seen as well, more objective and shows how 2021 drew the two closer and closer togetherless personal. The meeting was some unspecified combinationI think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, it seemsand offers a vibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of her anecdote about cup cakes, his literary contemporaries. In the words first section of her latest this book she was reciting, and her being in a Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a get-up never commonly worn at the author events I get to attend)you write not of real life as it is, but pulled Brookerof what you yourself imagine it to be. Whom would it help to know how I see this tower, a professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthesthat sea, down the rabbitor that Tartar -hole that why should it interest anyone? Of what use is Jewellit?''s diverse output. Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to follow her through Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a year in the published author's lifesubjective account, working giving us access to make a success of the latest titlehow he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and struggling with the next Andreyev in line. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is the resultsuch privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=15291360241804271977
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18011092651529077745|title=The CompanionDark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Lesley ThomsonAnn Cleeves|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in the park near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to work a shift the night before but who had never turned up. D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh.}}{{Frontpage|isbn= B0FK5LHKD9|title=The Colour of Memory|author=Christopher Bowden|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's been three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, so we were very glad to see a new novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Like all Bowden's stories, there's a mystery at the heart of ''The Colour of Money''. We like this running theme in an author's work - take a mystery but give it different flavour and atmosphere each time.}}{{Frontpage|author=Olga Tokarczuk|title=House of Day, House of Night
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''What's the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?''
The title of this spellbinding work, ''House of Day, House of Night'', somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the shift from day to night, however quotidian, causing chaos. But, the constant in that image is the house, 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=James Ritchie thought of himself as ''Ex-DCI Andy Flood has been a punctual man who was inexplicably never on Private Investigator for some time'' now, and he was - as usual - late to pick up his son, Wilbur, for their 'boys' day out'should be doing quite well financially. These were always days which appealed more to James than to Wilbur andUnfortunately, competing for the boyhis daughter's attention, defence against a murder charge drained his mothersavings. His wife, AnnaLaura, promised has been trying to persuade him a roast dinner when he returnedto retire - ''maybe go travelling or go on cruises. The dinner would never be servedThat's what 'ordinary people do', as James and Wilbur are '' He's not been entirely up front about the victims state of a double stabbing on the beachtheir savings. The When Jack Durban tries to persuade him to take his case falls to DI Toni Kemp of Sussex police. She, it's feeling the pressure. You can always tell - she shoplifts Snickers Bars when thought of the going gets toughmoney he could make that convinces him that this is a miscarriage of justice that he really should put right.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=152941363X1836284683|title=To Kill a Troubadour (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)The Big Happy|author=Martin WalkerDavid Chadwick
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeDystopian Fiction|summary=''Nobody knows what the truth Well! This is a murder mystery unlike any more.''other!
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241542405Sally Rooney|title=Meredith Alone|author=Claire AlexanderIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction|summary=When we first meet Meredith Maggs Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it's Wednesday 14 November 2018 and she's not left her home for 1,214 days. She'd ''like'' to: in fact, she so nearly doesinto words. Her outdoor clothes are on dialogue is gripping and she's even considered which shoes to wear if she's going to catch so brilliantly frustrating, as her traincharacters never quite say exactly what they feel. ThenAmong the many relationships woven into this story, she can't. She simply can't force herself the central one for readers to leave unravel is the safety of her homefraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. She's fortunate that she has Ivan, a good friendsocially awkward chess prodigy, Sadie, who visits regularly contrasts sharply with her two childrenhis older brother Peter, James and Matilda. Sadie's a cardiac nurse and full of sound common sense. In fact it was Sadie who gave Meredith her cat, Fred. Groceries are online deliveries and there's also an internet-based support group where you'll find Meredith as JIGSAWGIRL, so you can guess what she does successful lawyer living in her spare timeDublin. Then Tom McDermott arrives. HeFollowing their father's from Holding Hands, passing after a charity which supports people long battle with problems such as Meredithcancer, the brothers'salready strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09Y451X9K1036916375|title= Greetings, aliens!: (do pop in for tea)Just a Liverpool Lad|author=Richard F WalkerPeter McArdle
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionAutobiography|summary= ''Anything can happen at Just a birthday party, particularly when the birthday boy Liverpool Lad '' is the young Lord a collection of memories and reflections from the Manor. But when an eerie signal is picked years Peter McArdle spent growing up in the early hours, George and his new girlfriendaround Liverpool. Some are factual, such as the vivacious Lady Antoniafamily history of a sea-going family, embark on with the docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into the what-might-have-been. It's a quest book to settle into and allow your mind to uncover its incredible message. Things get complicated roam across your childhood memories, to think of simpler times when some total spoilsport lets life seemed less constrained, despite the cat out blitz that was a constant factor in McArdle's early years. I'd never heard of the bag parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and could appear after the world goes into a state of panicall-clear was sounded.''}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Darren Shan1836285493|title= Archibald Lox and the Sinkhole to Hell: Archibald Lox series, book 7 The Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= So. We're back to the Merge with the first chapter in the third volume Will is a keen player of Darren Shan's saga of Archibald Loxvideo games, a conscientious student, a young man who can pick the locks slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. But most of portals from our world to anotherall, called the ''Merge''he is an aspiring writer. Since English is his last adventurefavourite lesson at his school, Archie has persuaded his foster parents into a slightly uneasy truce on the topic of his regular disappearancesMarlowe Park, and one at which he excels. They donThis hasn't ask too many questions gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and Archie she has settled into suggested to Will and his mum that he spends a fairly peaceful routine couple of visiting Winstonafternoons a week at a different school, Station Road, where his lock-picking mentor in the ''Merge'' and showing Kojo, the young guardian, around our world of the Bornability might be better extended. |isbn= B09Z2MTCZD
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=John Henry Phillips1009473085|title=The SearchConservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=HistoryPolitics and Society|summary=Archaeology cannot be childSometimes it's play, when simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. If you're scraping in looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the dirt looking to find book for you. If that's what you 're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can find, often knowing there should be something there but not always confident whatbettered for those tumultuous years. Archaeology must It's a compelling read and should be a fair bit harder when you set out compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to find some specific thingpolitics. This ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. It's the seventh book is in a case of series which looks at the latter, impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as our author promises to locate the topic of the titular searchmost important. And he really hasn't made it easy for himself – This book follows the search area is well-established format: a wide one, series of experts from various fields review the state of the target might not exist any more – oh, and it's underwater, nation when he cannot dive. Latching on to a particular D-Day veteran through helping the heroic old man's visit back to Francecoalition took over in 2010, our author has promised to find the landing craft changes that delivered him to Normandy, occurred 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 of whom perishedsituation in 2024. Who else would make such promises to someone in their nineties?|isbn=1472146182
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Fiona LongmuirJenny Valentine|title=Looking for EmilyUs in the Before and After
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersTeens|summary=Meet Lily. She Elk and her mother have just moved from a city to a tiny seaside town called Edge, and everyone from said mother to her teacher Mab are making demands of Lily that she make new best friends. It turns out that she doesn't have any say in the matter, for while pretending when phoning home or more than that she was with someone called Emilyeven, she their friendship is unaware her neighbour, Sam, is just about to make herself known, and a once in a big waylifetime connection. But where does Emily come from? Well, Lily used that name because of what she They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other'd just stumbled into – a mysterious collection of s contact details at the most mundane objectstime. But then chance brings them back together, in some converted houses behind a most unassuming door, in a place calling itself 'The Museum of Emily'and they are inseparable. Sam is completely unaware of this 'museum' Something has happened though, toosomething terrible and tragic, leaving the two girls to make sure and now they leave no stone unturned in finding what's behind the intrigue..must work through their grief, and their friendship, together.|isbn=18399427541471196585
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09XZMCDVF1787333175|title=Stories: 13 tantalising talesYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Richard F WalkerBenji Waterhouse|rating=45|genre=Short StoriesPopular Science|summary=I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here''A news vendor after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=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 Going to correct an iconic quote; Hurt}}, a volunteer teacher proves glorious mixture of insight into the ideal person to have around in a lawless village; workings of the new boy on the pub football team is very useful with his feetNHS, humour and awfully familiar…autobiography. ''You Don't Have to be Mad...'' This collection promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of thirteen short stories by Richard F Walker has a lot psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it was acceptable to offer be looking for humour in this setting but the eclectic reader. Tying them together laughter is the idea that remarkable directed at a situation rather than a person and strange, even miraculous, things can happen to ordinary people. And that ordinary doesn't mean boring or uninteresting. Form and tone varies so this little treasury of short fiction it is never boring always delivered with empathy and you're never quite sure what's coming nextunderstanding.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1800901232Mariana Enriquez|title=Stitched Up|author=Steve ColeA Sunny Place for Shady People
|rating=5
|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyShort Stories|summary=Twelve-year-old Hanh wanted to be a fashion designer. Life in the rural village where she lived with Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her family was happy, if not prosperous, so when the smartly-dressed man and woman came settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to the village to offer Hahn a job in Hanoi it was an opportunity not to be missed. Some money changed hands and Hanh was on the mini-bus to Hanoi. Onlyurban planning mishap, Hanh an overcrowded homeless shelter and the other girls were not going to work in a shop, they were to work in virtual slavery in an illegal garment factorycrime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. You know those jeans you really wanted: the ones with intricate embroidery and beading on the legs? The ones with the artfully-placed rips and distressed seams that felt circumstances of her characters are so soft when you touched them? It's quite possible plausible that Hanh and her co-workers made themthe supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture.|isbn=1803511230
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Daisy Hildyard1529934753|title=Emergency|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The summary of this book doesn't come close to explaining what is done with the premise.|isbn=1913097811}} {{Frontpage Protest|author=Sally Oliver |title=The Weight of Loss Rob Rinder|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 from the bones of her spine which steadily increase in size and volume. Her GP, diagnosing the odd phenomenon as a physical reaction to her grief, recommends she go to stay at Nede, an experimental new treatment centre in Wales. Yet something strange is happening to Marianne and the other patients at Nede: a metamorphosis of a kind. As Marianne's memories threaten to overwhelm her, Nede offers her release from this cycle of memory and pain—but only at a terrible price: that of identity itself.|isbn= 086154112X }}{{Frontpage|author=Kjell Ola Dahl and Don Bartlett (translator)|title=Little Drummer|rating=35
|genre=Crime
|summary=Part For a little while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, the country's most famous living artist, was not going to show up for the opening of his retrospective at the Oslo Detectives seriesRoyal Academy. Still, this crime story is a mixture he arrived in the nick of police procedural time, complete with his two wives and thrillersix children, one of whom filmed what happened. Beginning with the death of a young woman in a carpark Being an influencer, you tend to do things like that looks very much like an overdose, but it unravels into was fortunate that there was a far-reaching investigation record of murderthe protest. Lexi Williams, fraudan intern at the RA, grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a chair and international pharmaceutical dealings. Our two detectives are Gunnarstranda and Frolichproceeded to spray Bruce in the face, who end up working separately on whilst shouting ''Stop the case as Gunnarstranda remains in Norway whilst Frolich is led War''. It seemed to Africa as they follow the twists and turns be part of an ongoing series of the investigation'blue-face' attacks, but this was different. Gunnarstranda and Frolich are tenacious, chasing down the truth in increasingly difficult, frustrating circumstances, trying hard to uncover the truth as they are sure that something much bigger The can had been laced with cyanide, and much more dangerous, is going onSir Max Bruce was dead.|isbn=1914585127
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008541477Ariel Saramandi|title=Clarice Bean: Scram!|author=Lauren ChildPortrait of an Island on Fire
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersPolitics and Society|summary=It was a hot summer day right at In this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the beginning sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, tunneling deep into the summer holidays wounds left by colonialism and Clarice Bean was bored: slavery to expose how these legacies still shape modern life. Saramandi describes the country at one stage as ''Nothing ever happens except for sometimes... And only on rare-sh occasions, which is hardly ever.rotting'' There are seven members of , a blunt yet apt metaphor for the Bean family living in systemic decay brought about by the house: Grandad (who lives on the ground floor because he's wobbly)malignant forces of racism, Mum and Dadpatriarchy, Clarice's older brother, Kurt environmental degradation and younger brother, Minal Cricketgovernmental dysfunction. There's also MarcieEach essay in this collection serves as a kind of diagnostic, who's main claim to fame seems to be that she steals charting the batteries from Clarice's torch, which means that she can't read in various diseases afflicting the airing cupboard. Clarice would love to have someone who listened to her, rather than wanting to talk, but the only one who does that is Granny and she lives in New York. The Bean family is ''different''island state.|isbn=1804271616
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0711266204Pekka Harju-Autti|title=The Secret Life of Birds|author=Moira Butterfield LoveVortex and Vivian Mineker (illustrator)the Drakor's Curse|rating=54|genre=Children's Non-FictionFantasy|summary=I have recently discovered It's the eighteenth century, a great pleasure: I sit time of discovery and watch the vast numbers of birds which visit our garden on a daily basisBritain is expanding its foreign trade. An hour can pass without my noticing. I've established which species feed from the groundCaptain Julius Hawthorne, an experienced Scottish sea captain, which pop is sent to the feeders for a quick snatch of some food and who settles Andaman Islands in for a good munch but I wish I was more knowledgeablehis endeavour. It would have been wonderful ifAlong with his son, Peter, and their cat, Michi, as they set off on a child, I'd had access perilous voyage to a book such as ''these faraway lands. The Secret Life of Birds'islands are beautiful and stunning in their scenery and the islanders'leader, Aarav, is keen to establish good relations. So – what is it?|isbn=B0DS1VGHH3
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1737030942Helene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=Bag O'Goodies|author=Jolly Walker BittickLili is Crying|rating=4.5|genre= AnthologiesLiterary Fiction|summary=SometimesFirst published in 1953 in French, you deserve this novel is a treat timeless text which wrenches the hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and mine was Jolly Walker Bittick's ''Bag O'Goodies''. I first encountered his writing about a year agosentences from their proper position on the page and positions them elsewhere, when I read his [[Cape Henry House by Jolly Walker Bittick|Cape Henry House]]disjointed, a rollicking tale of what happens when five young men find a base for their partyingtruncated. Right now, I didn't want a full-length novel, so I turned to this anthology Like the lives of verse and short stories. Bittick's writing has matured - and so have his her characters, they are often left tragically incomplete. Well... most of them!|isbn=1804271675
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Caryl Lewis and George ErmosTom Percival|title=SeedThe Wrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Marty has two parental figures in his Will's lifeis difficult, and they both might be thought in a multitude of as complete embarrassmentsways. His grandfather runs an allotment He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', and manages to stink he has the entire town out from it when he douses it in fish guts each spring to fertilise wrong shoes because his vegetables. His mother somehow combines dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the dual roles most basic of housebound failure things like food, and hoarder – while she seems to do nothing and hasnhis dad can't left work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building in years she has still managed to fill it to site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the brim with junk. What Martyfact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's classmates don't know about this they can draw lines to from how poor Marty always lookslife seems bleak in every direction. And yet, with his one school uniform built from lost propertyhe still has a tiny amount of hope. We see him as once again the council threaten her and him with eviction He is good at art, and as clings to the moments of joy when he celebrates his birthday with is drawing, that feel like a light at the gift from his grandfather end of a solitary plant seedlong, dark tunnel.|isbn=15290776641398527122
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|author=Sophie CameronSylvie Cathrall|title=Our Sister, AgainA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=After Isla's older sister Flora dies, her family struggle to find There are few greater joys than a way forward. In particular, Isla's mum who can’t seem book which lives up to be able to let her daughter go. When Isla passes her mum's details onto a support group she finds online, she thinks they might be able to helpcompelling premise. But actually, it turns out they are part of an experimental company who offer the family the chance to have Flora back again, in robot form. But And this won't just be a look-a-like. They use all is one of Flora's online history, and interviews with family and friends, and through this data they will recreate Flora as closely as possiblethem. But what will it really mean for the family, to have Flora back? And is it really Flora at all?|isbn=17889539160356522776
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|isbn=13985075041786482126|title=Cold ReckoningThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Russ ThomasElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=DS Adam Tyler never believed that his father committed suicide and for Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the last sixteen years hesite was going to hold seventy-five 's been searching for evidence to prove that heluxury's right. When apartments - when they discovered the bones of a frozen body was found in Damflask Reservoir, there was a link back to child beneath a cold case from 2002doorway. There didn't immediately seem to be any connection was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DI Richard TylerDCI Harry Nelson. It's death difficult as Ruth knows, but Adam Tyler senses a link to the case Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his father was investigating before he died. Above all there's child as a growing sense that the criminality result of Det Supt Stevens is going to be brought out into the openone night they spent together some three months ago. Perhaps Tyler Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is going prone to get the answers he needs?sudden bouts of sickness.
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|isbnauthor=0727850547|title=Blind Justice Guadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (DS McAvoy 10Translator)|authortitle=David MarkThe Accidentals|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeShort Stories|summary=Acting DI Aector McAvoy hadn't even had time for breakfast when the call came through. A body had been found This collection was truly enchanting in the roots all senses of a fallen tree at Brantingham, near Hull. When he gets to the sceneword: spellbinding with its fantastical, he will find what greets him is even worse than he could have imagined. A young man's corpse is entangled with the roots magical elements and charming in its gentle portrayal of a newly-fallen tree – the roots have grown through him – nature and two silver Roman coins have been nailed through his eyeshuman relationships. It would seem Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and precisely, her stories structured by a wisdom that this was done whilst the man was still alive. McAvoy makes a promise appears to want to teach us something about the victim: I will find answers. You will know justice. But justice always comes at a cost and this time the cost might be to McAvoy's own familyworld.|isbn=1804271470
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|authorisbn=Natalia Garcia Freire0008551375|title=This World Does Not Belong To UsWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary= Early comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. I will agree with Leanne Wilson's body was found at the first – tremendous is no understatement – but 'bottom of a delight' is perhaps using Scottish mountain, seemingly the expression in result of a way Itragic accident. She'm not familiar withd looked so happy, too, when she posted her intentions on Facebook. I have to confess my ignorance Her friends were relieved as she was just out of an unpleasant relationship, but it looked like she was living her best life now. Then it emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the Spanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation herelast year. All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and sensible people. From None of the little I have read (in translation, I don't read Spanish) what a stupid thing to do' explanations applied. They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there does seem to be 's a tendency towards the fantastical – killer on the mystical realismloose. |isbn=0861541901
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