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==The Best New Books==
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1846976146Paul B Preciado|title=The Bone Road|author=N E SolomonsDysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersPolitics and Society|summary=Heather Bishop''It is never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood'' Through this hybrid text, the former Olympic cyclistconsisting of arias, letters, essays and autofiction, Preciado expresses his own hybrid self, flew and brings forth a new sensorium as an offering to Bosnia to surprise her boyfriendthe new generation, cycling journalist Ryan Mackinnona new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a sign of political apathy. She even took their bikes so they could have a few daysRather, it is the proportional, valid response to '' break in the regionepistemological 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''. It was a little worrying The whole text is framed against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic as that he didn't seem exactly pleased which has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to see her: she even wondered if he had emerge on a woman in the hotel roomglobal scale, or as ''pangea covidica''. Heather had to give up competitive cycling after Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a traumatic brain injury four years before: she was still fit but her reactions and her memory were not up to the standard she would need sign of weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to race again. Sometimes she couldn't be certain about what she had or hadn't done and she simply couldnuse dysphoria as your revolutionary platform't cope in difficult situations. She didn't entirely trust herself.|isbn=1804271454
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Judith EagleSamantha Harvey|title=The Accidental StowawayOrbital
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Patch is a little girl who has been passed from one relation to anotherIn 2024, until it seems that there is nobody left Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for her to go to. Her father died when she was very young''Orbital'', and her mother ran away. The family lawyer, after consultation with ‘someone’, arranges for her to go to a school compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in Liverpool, but on her arrival there, she gets caught up in an adventure with the lives of a little boy called Turo who works on a steamshipgroup of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. During Through a chase with him (when she is both trying narrative lens that mirrors the astronauts' orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to get her rollerskate back and running away from the police!) she winds up on the steamship hiding see our planet in a lifeboat, and before she knows it, the ship has left the docks and she is an accidental stowaway!wholly new light.|isbn=05713631211529922933
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0760379874295967572X|title=Super Easy Knitting for BeginnersPale Pieces|author=Carri HammettG M Stevens|rating=4.5|genre=CraftsLiterary Fiction|summary=I learned Our unnamed narrator is about to knit in begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and what the nineteen-fifties: it wasn't a choicepurpose of this journey is, it was a requirementis uncertain. Girls learned to knit Django found the tickets ''on the floor somewhere'' and has persuaded our narrator to embroider and boys did wood and metal workaccompany him. My knitting wa accompanied by a lot of criticism and quite a few tears: it was a long time before I realised that there was pleasure to be had Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the skill. Nearly seventy years later it's past as the pair travel to the only thing that keeps my hands at all supple. The turning point was a booklet published station by Patons which gave all the basics coach and some patterns. I've been looking for something simple to recommend to people who'd like to master the skilltrain is a steam locomotive. So, how did ''Super Easy Knitting For Beginners'' work out?
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sarah Todd Taylor0008551324|title=Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for TroubleThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Meet Alice EclairIt's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. A perfect eye and very careful hands have made her one of Paris's best young cake makers Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and decorators, making sure her motherhe's establishment prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is a classy affair. Not bad buried and who was responsible for a thirteen year oldher death. OhThis person, he promises, is someone big and a perfect eye and a very careful handler and remote trainer have also made sure she is a very competent young spyit will be worth the police doing what he wants. Her first real mission will And what he wants is to be transferred to chase a traitor across the country – working behind the scenes on a posh sleeper train an open prison to serve the south remainder of Francehis sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and hoping against hope that she can prevent documents allowing foreign agents 's even prepared to creep into do the country other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from getting into nefarious handswhat's happening. But while nobody would have her down as a spy, can she possibly leave behind her rookie status and find the baddy?|isbn=1839940956
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0760379912Jon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Super Easy Quilting for Beginners|author=Editors of Quarry BooksVaim
|rating=4
|genre=CraftsLiterary Fiction|summary=I learned patchworking from necessity: old or outgrown clothes needed to be turned into something new and usable when I ''All was in my twentiesstrange''.. It would be a while before it became a pleasure rather than a chore but I've never felt completely at home with quilting. I needed something This haunting phrase encapsulates the pervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, a little fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more stylish than my usual buttons or knots. ''Super Easy Quilting real for Beginners'' seemed like a good place to startJatgeir and Eline, two of the protagonists caught in its melancholic current. So, how did it stack up?|isbn=1804271829
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17883607371035043092|title= Artivism: The Battle for Museums in the Era of PostmodernismKilling Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Alexander AdamsAnn Cleeves|rating=25|genre= Politics and SocietyCrime|summary= Can art ever be apolitical? All art is political because art is not made in I can't have been the only person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a vacuumnew life on Orkney. It is made by people. Antonio Gramsci stated that ‘’Every man… contributes to modifying 's been seven years since we heard from him, but he's now living with Willow Reeves and their young son, James, as well as Cassie, the social environment in which he develops’’daughter of his former partner. Therefore Willow's also his boss, all art must and she ''should'' be politicalon maternity leave, but when the body of a popular islander, Archie Stout, is found, even implicitly. Alexander Adams in his new book ‘Artivism: The Battle for Museum in the Era aftermath of Postmodernism’ is adamant that art is freer when it is art for art’s sakea storm, she can't resist getting involved. The recent trend He'd been battered about the head with a Neolithic stone - one of soa pair -called artivism has caused artists to become more overtly political (read: left wing). Their seemingly grass roots movements have which had been astroturfed by large “left-wing” donors and media elites hoping to create stolen from a more globalist and progressive regime. Or at least that’s what Alexander Adams believesmuseum.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1408712172Thea Lenarduzzi|title=The Cliff House|author=Chris BrookmyreTower
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=''Many How unctuous are the fats of them didnanother't know each others life, one of them didnhow dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''t know anybody, including Jen, one of them quite possibly hated her, and two of them definitely hated each other. What could possibly go wrong?''
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1788360702Claire-Louise Bennett|title=CharlesBig Kiss, The Alternative Prince: An Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard ErnstBye-Bye |rating=4.5|genre=BiographyLiterary Fiction|summary=For over forty yearsEverything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter usually a symbol of alternative medicine intimacy and complementary therapiescloseness, becomes evidence of love lost. When the narrator cries out internally, ''Charlescome over here and kiss me, The Alternative Prince'' critically assesses the Prince's opinions, beliefs and aims against the background of the scientific evidenceit is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. There are few instances The imagined recipient of his beliefs being vindicated and his relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the reputation of a man who this plea is proud of his refusal to apply evidenceXavier, her ex-basedpartner, logical reasoning a ghost she conjures to his ambitionstest her detachment.|isbn=1804271934
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Will Carver0008405026|title=The Daves Next Door|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary= Five strangers come together A Stranger in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London tube line. As their fates overlap, the story is told in backwards order, leading up to the fateful moment.|isbn= 1914585186}} {{Frontpage|isbn=1529125790|title=The Family Remains(Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Lisa JewellJane Casey|rating=45|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=In July 2019, Jason Mott It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was mud larking on never found and the banks of the River Thames when he came across investigation ground to a bag of what appeared to be human boneshalt. Detective Inspector Samuel Owusu Now, her mother, Helena, and Saffron Brown from forensics were there to investigateher father are dead in their bed. The bones were indeed human: Initially, it looks like a young woman had been killed by a blow to straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the head many years ago - probably bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as long as twentythough it was going to be an open-five and- but the bones had not been in the river longer than shut case is now a yearcomplex double murder. There was no identification but Kerrigan is convinced that the bag contained vegetationexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, some of which was quite unusualUna Burt) are less convinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jennifer MasonAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=Partitions of UnityThe Other Girl
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionAutobiography|summary= Here ''We were born from the same body. I've never really wanted to think about this.'' Ernaux's work is always very candid and her tone transparent, but this raw epistolary text must be one of the most intimate accounts I've read. Ernaux writes in direct address to her sister, however, this letter will never reach her. Why? Because Annie Ernaux's sister died of diphtheria at Bookbag Towers6 years old, we first met Elizabeth Cromwella few months before the vaccine was made compulsory in France, dominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery 2 years before the author was even born. The large and instant void created by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and unravelled a series the jarring concept of disappearances. In writing to an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux''Partitions s process of Unity''reckoning with this giant absence in her life, an absence that she sets her mind to solving a murder...has always felt but often denied.|isbn=B09LQR9FRF1804271845
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{{Frontpage
|author=Fiona Parashar Maxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=A Beautiful Way to Coach Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating=3.5|genre=Business and FinanceBiography|summary= So what am 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 doing reading think that Gorky completely rejects this bookperspective, and offers a vibrant, using subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. In the first section of this book, and being audacious enough Tolstoy complains to review his friend Gorky that: ''you write not of real life as it? Truth is I bought , but of what you yourself imagine it out of curiosityto be. I was at an on-line launch for the book and Fiona’s description of her Vision Days appealed Whom would it help to me. know how I wanted to see if there were things in there this tower, that sea, or that I could Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use with someone I am currently helping / supporting / trying to mentor – without committing them to is it?''. Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a full daysubjective account, which I know would send them scurrying for their burrow. I also wanted giving us access to see if I could give myself a Vision Dayhow he saw Tolstoy, to bring me away from their vision Chekhov and back to my ownAndreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=103211603X1804271977
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=19137503531529077745|title=Britannica's Word of the DayThe Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Patrick Kelly, Renee Kelly and Sue MacyAnn Cleeves|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionCrime|summary=''Britannica's Word A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in the Day'' has park near Rosebank, a subcare home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh -title: ''366 Elevating Utterances one of the care workers who was due to Stretch Your Cranium and Tickle Your Humerus'' which probably tells you all that you need work a shift the night before but who had never turned up. D I Vera Stanhope is called in to know about this brilliant book. It starts on January 1st with ''Razzmatazz''investigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, tells you how to pronounce it (''razfourteen-muhyear-TAZold Chloe Spencer. Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl''), gives you a definition and then includes the word in a sentence so s diary makes it clear that you know how it should be usedshe adored Josh. You also get an engaging and frequently amusing illustration tooShe knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh. I don't think I've ever encountered a word which uses the letter Z four times before!
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=A C WiseB0FK5LHKD9|title=HookedThe Colour of Memory|author=Christopher Bowden
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It’s It's been twenty-two three years since Captain Hook, now going we last reviewed a book by just ‘James’favourite regular Christopher Bowden, has been in Neverland. Living so we were very glad to see a new life in Londonnovel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Like all Bowden's stories, he has never completely escaped his past. But now he senses there's a mystery at the edges heart of ''The Colour of the beast circling around his life in London, and when suddenly he finds himself face to face in the street with Wendy, he knows that the line between Money''. We like this world and Neverland is growing thin. The beast is finally coming to get him, and running theme in the process will pull Wendy an author's work - take a mystery but give it different flavour and her daughter Jane back into their past once againatmosphere each time.|isbn=1789096839
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1787301745Olga Tokarczuk|title=Confidence|author=Denise MinaHouse of Day, House of Night|rating=3.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=We're back in 'What's the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?'' The title of podcasters Anna and Finthis spellbinding work, whom we first met in [[Conviction by Denise Mina|Conviction]]. It was Anna who'd organised the 'familyHouse of Day, House of Night'' holiday: her ex, Hamishsomewhat 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=Ex-DCI Andy Flood has been a Private Investigator for some time now with her best friend, Estelle and her children are living with themhe should be doing quite well financially. Fin (who was married to Estelle) is there too and it was Anna who invited Unfortunately, his girlfriend, Sofia. Itdaughter's not long before everyone realises that was defence against a bad mistakemurder charge drained his savings. His wife, Laura, has been trying to persuade him to retire - ''maybe go travelling or go on cruises. SofiaThat's difficult and with everyone trapped inside their holiday accommodation - a lighthousewhat 'ordinary people do', in a storm - she begins talking about Anna'' He's past, including her real name and not been entirely up front about the rapestate of their savings. This was something which Anna had intended When Jack Durban tries to persuade him to tell take his case, it's the girls - twelve-tear-old Jess and ten-year-old Lizzie - when thought of the time was right. And money he could make that convinces him that this wasn't the is a miscarriage of justice that he really should put right time.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=178763566X1836284683|title=Listen to MeThe Big Happy|author=Tess GerritsenDavid Chadwick
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeDystopian Fiction|summary=We're in Boston with Amy. When she set out for university this morning it was Well! This is a spring day and she wore her new, buttery-leather pumps but as she comes out of the library she knows that they're going to be ruined - and unsafe - in the snow that's now falling. As she crosses the road, a car comes out of nowhere and hits her. It doesn't stop.murder mystery unlike any other!
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008395632Sally Rooney|title=One Last Secret|author=Adele ParksIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction |summary=Natalya Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is an escortsomething of a grandmaster at putting it into words. WellHer dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her name's not ''actually'' Natalya: that's her professional name but it is a nod to her Serbian heritagecharacters never quite say exactly what they feel. She's actually thirty-Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one-year-old Teodora Dziewulski, usually known as Dora Wulskifor readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. If you're thinking of 'escort' as being a polite description of a prostituteIvan, run by a pimpsocially awkward chess prodigy, who's turning tricks to fund a drug habitcontrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, forget it. Dora is a professional successful lawyer living in all senses of the wordDublin. She has an agentFollowing their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, Elspeth, who takes 30% of her income and deals with the payments but checks out the clients to see that Dora is going to be safe. Dora describes herself as a self-employed clairvoyant to Her Majestybrothers's Revenue and Customsalready strained relationship faces new trials. |isbn=0571365469
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=David Solomons1036916375|title=A Beginner's Guide to Ruling the GalaxyJust a Liverpool Lad|author=Peter McArdle
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''Just a Liverpool Lad '' is a collection of memories and reflections from the years Peter McArdle spent growing up in and around Liverpool. Some are factual, such as the family history of a sea-going family, with the docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into the what-might-have-been. It's a book to settle into and allow your mind to roam across your childhood memories, to think of simpler times when life seemed less constrained, despite the blitz that was a constant factor in McArdle's early years. I'd never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and could appear after the all-clear was sounded.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn= 1836285493
|title=The Double Life of a Wheelchair User
|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Gavin Will is being followeda keen player of video games, seemingly constantlya conscientious student, by the new (very a slightly annoying) girl at schoolbrother and a supportive friend. Only this But most of all, he is not your typical boy meets girl storyan aspiring writer. Because in this instanceEnglish is his favourite lesson at his school, the girl in question is NikiMarlowe Park, and she is a galactic princess (noone at which he excels. This hasn't gone unnoticed by his headteacher, reallyMrs Howarth, and she is!) So what will Gavin do when has suggested to Will and his mum that he becomes embroiled in spends a couple of afternoons a week at a situation wheredifferent school, potentiallyStation Road, Earth and everyone on it will where his ability might be blown to smithereens, all because of Niki?|isbn=0857639935better extended.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alex Cotter1009473085|title=The Mermaid CallConservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=3.5|genre=Confident ReadersPolitics and Society|summary=Vivien knows Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that mermaids donapplies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''t exist. But she also knows they have to exist – at least in If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the public eye. For there would be nothing to Lake Splendour – a far northern English resort – without them. A hundred years and change agoinside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, two teenaged girls allegedly spent months with mermaids, but were forced to return to help out with then this isn't the Great War effortbook for you. They also showed female emancipationIf that's what you're looking for, which helped create the townI don't think Anthony Seldon's tourism industrybook, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, now faded and falling apart but once a feminist success storycan be bettered for those tumultuous years. Alice, It's a girl compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who stumbles into Vivienthinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect's gran's tourist shop one day, knows she certainly wants mermaids to exist – she thinks her familyis an entirely different beast. It's black sheep died searching for them, or else was just too successful the seventh book in her hunta series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. When This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the shycoalition took over in 2010, doubting Thomasina the changes that is Vivien collides with occurred and the exuberant, gung-ho Alice, what on earth – or perhaps situation in water – will they find?|isbn=18399419012024.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1739805100Jenny Valentine|title=Loving Us in the Enemy: Building bridges in a time of war|author=Andrew MarchBefore and After|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyTeens|summary= Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other'Loving s contact details at the Enemy'' tells the quite extraordinary story of author Andrew March's grandparentstime. But then chance brings them back together, who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach in the early days of the Nazi regime in the 1930sand they are inseparable. Fred Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, a sensitive and thoughtful mannow they must work through their grief, had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at the time. Fred's attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he did make friendships and connections that lasted for a lifetimetheir friendship, together. |isbn=1471196585
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0B575J99N1787333175|title=Beneath the PorticoesYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Brooke AdamsBenji Waterhouse|rating=45|genre=Women's FictionPopular Science|summary=Elizabeth Miller I was thirty-four and a teacher at a prestigious girltempted to read ''s school in York. It was You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'comfortable'after enjoying Adam Kay' but she longed for something more in lifes first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and autobiography. She'd 'You Don'still not found the right vocation nor met the right mant Have to be Mad...'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and now was the time to make work of a changepsychiatrist. She needed challenges. There I did wonder whether it was a little trepidation when she applied acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the professoressa job in Bologna. After laughter is directed at a situation rather than a telephone interview, she was offered the position person and it wasn't long before she was exploring the beautiful city. There were some natural doubts before her first class but it went surprisingly wellis always delivered with empathy and understanding.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529125898Mariana Enriquez|title=Godmersham Park|author=Gill HornbyA Sunny Place for Shady People
|rating=5
|genre=Historical FictionShort Stories|summary=''If it were not for the casual dereliction Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of the odd gentleman's dutydisused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishap, there would no women to teach wellan overcrowded homeless shelter and a crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine -bred daughters at allwithin Argentina. The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture. |isbn=1803511230}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529934753|title=The Protest|author=Rob Rinder|rating=4.''5|genre=CrimeAnne Sharpe |summary=For a little while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, the country's most famous living artist, was thirty-one years old when she arrived at Godmersham Park not going to take show up for the position opening of governess to twelve-year-old Fanny Austenhis retrospective at the Royal Academy. Still, he arrived in the nick of time, complete with his two wives and six children, one of whom filmed what happened. She had no experience of teaching Being an influencer, you tend to do things like that, but this it was fortunate that there was a case record of necessitythe protest. Until Lexi Williams, an intern at the death RA, grabbed a spray can of her mother, Anne had blue paint from under a comfortable life chair and was loved by both parents although her father was frequently absent from proceeded to spray Bruce in the face, whilst shouting ''Stop the householdWar''. When her mother died, her father cast her off and would have nothing more It seemed to do with her. No explanation was offered but she would receive be part of an annuity ongoing series of £35 a year'blue-face' attacks, but this was different. Her maidThe can had been laced with cyanide, Agnes, would receive nothing but and Sir Max Bruce was fortunately taken in by some neighboursdead.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Lev Parikian Ariel Saramandi|title=Light Rains Sometimes FallPortrait of an Island on Fire
|rating=4.5
|genre=Animals Politics and WildlifeSociety|summary= If you’re a writer yourselfIn this powerful collection of essays, or an aspiring writerSaramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, or someone who pretends tunneling deep into the wounds left by colonialism and slavery to write, then you know that there are unnumbered types of booksexpose how these legacies still shape modern life. Some you read for funSaramandi describes the country at one stage as ''rotting'', some a blunt yet apt metaphor for distractionthe systemic decay brought about by the malignant forces of racism, some for vicarious emotionpatriarchy, some to learn from environmental degradation and governmental dysfunction. Each essay in this collection serves as 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. Ordiagnostic, indeed, are actually trying to writecharting the various diseases afflicting the island state.|isbn=17839663861804271616
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0751581577Pekka Harju-Autti|title=Lying Beside You|author=Michael RobothamLoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse|rating=54|genre=ThrillersFantasy|summary=Elias Haven murdered his parents It's the eighteenth century, a time of discovery and his twin sisters two days after his nineteenth birthdayBritain is expanding its foreign trade. Voices told him Captain Julius Hawthorne, an experienced Scottish sea captain, is sent to do itthe Andaman Islands in his endeavour. Only two people survived the carnage - EliasAlong with his son, who was sent to RamptonPeter, and his thirteen-year-old brothertheir cat, CyrusMichi, who hid in they set off on a shed until the police found himperilous voyage to these faraway lands. Twenty years later, Cyrus is a forensic psychologist The islands are beautiful and he's been told that his brother is being released. Can Cyrus forgive the sinner whilst having to live on a daily basis with the results of the crime? Can he bear to have Elias living stunning in their scenery and the same house? How will his lodgerislanders' leader, twenty-one-year-old Evie CormacAarav, cope?is keen to establish good relations.|isbn=B0DS1VGHH3
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=140595115XHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=A Stranger on Board|author=Cameron WardLili is Crying
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Right from the beginningFirst published in 1953 in French, we know this will not turn out well. Eight days into novel is a timeless text which wrenches the trip to deliver hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the superyacht ''Escape'' to Antigua, all 300 tonnes page and six decks will be floundering without power in the Atlantic. Those of the crew who are left will be cowering in fear a fellow crew member tries to pick positions them offelsewhere, one by onedisjointed, truncated. Some are already dead. They are three days from shore and there is no way Like the lives of making contact. But let's go back to when all this startedher characters, in Southamptonthey are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=1804271675
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1398508632Tom Percival|title=The Wilderness Cure|author=Mo WildeWrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=LifestyleConfident Readers|summary=It had been on the cards for Will's life is difficult, in a while but it was the week-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year multitude of eating only wild foodways. The end of NovemberHe is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', particularly in Central Scotland was perhaps not he has the best time to start, in a world where wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the normal sores had been exacerbated by climate changemost basic of things like food, Brexit and a pandemic. Wilde had a few advantages: his dad can't work because he lost his job at the area around her college, was working a known habitat with cash-in-hand job on a variety of terrainsbuilding site and had an accident. She had electricity which allowed her to run a fridgeThrow into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, freezer and dehydratorWill's life seems bleak in every direction. She had And yet, he still has a car - and fueltiny amount of hope. Most importantlyHe is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, she had shelter: this was not that feel like a light at the end of a plan to ''live'' wild just to live off its producelong, dark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122
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|isbnauthor=1635864674Sylvie Cathrall|title=Tomato Love: 44 Mouthwatering Recipes for Salads, Sauces, Stews, and More|author=Joy HowardA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=45|genre=CookeryScience Fiction|summary=''Think of it as no-whining dining.'' We know it's a fruit rather There are few greater joys than a vegetable but the fact that so many people get confused just goes book which lives up to show how versatile the tomato a compelling premise. And this is. Then there are all the different types, not to mention the cultivars - and you begin to understand why Joy Howard says that she hasn't met one she didn't love. I'd argue with her there - I have no affection for the ones you find in the supermarket ''next'' to the ones labelled 'grown for flavour' to distinguish of them from the ones that have obviously just been grown for profit. Personally, I'd prefer a tin of tomatoes to those - and Howard makes good use of these. She's not at all precious if you get the taste.|isbn= 0356522776
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|isbn=02419890271786482126|title=We All Have Our SecretsThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Jane CorryElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Harold Gentle advertised for liveBuilders were demolishing an old house in Norwich -in help as he the site was failing going to cope at Willowmead House on his ownhold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. His advert was fairly specific: he There was a retired lawyer needing help but he also spoke of the ability to cook a good steak, enjoy decent wine and be free from any food fadsno skull. The first person who came to the house was Francoise, Was this a French woman in her early twentiesritual killing or murder? Inevitably, who fit the bill perfectlyDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. She got the job It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Francoise didnNelson doesn't know about the advert: , that she was there for is pregnant with his child as a completely different reasonresult of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Emily Gentle Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is Harold's daughter and she came prone to Willowmead House because she was running away from a problem in London. Emily's a midwife and her last shift had seen her lacking concentration and a complaint had been madesudden bouts of sickness.
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|author=Ewald Arenz Guadalupe Nettel and Rachel Ward Rosalind Harvey (translatorTranslator)|title=Tasting SunlightThe Accidentals
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionShort Stories|summary=Sally is a teenager who has run away from an anorexia treatment clinic. She just wants spaceThis collection was truly enchanting in all senses of the word: spellbinding with its fantastical, magical elements and for people to stop questioning her, tiptoeing around her, charming in its gentle portrayal of nature and trying to fix her without ever truly understanding herhuman relationships. She finds herself on some farmland with a woman called Liss who is in her forties Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and seems to live alone. Liss is unlike any other adult Sally has ever met. She just accepts Sally as she isprecisely, giving her stories structured by a room wisdom that appears to sleep in, and the space want to just be. As they work together on teach us something about the farm, a closeness develops between them, becoming a beautiful, powerful friendshipworld.|isbn=19145851431804271470
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|authorisbn=Jennifer Mason0008551375|title=Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell MysteryWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Leanne Wilson''A struggling poetry zine, s body was found at the bottom of a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoodsScottish mountain, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed seemingly the 2004 Olympics, result of a womentragic accident. She's track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the-art S&M dungeond looked so happy, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x)too, when she posted her intentions on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in GeorgiaFacebook...'' This is Her friends were relieved as she was just a sample out of the cast of characters and settings in Preposterous. As you can seean unpleasant relationship, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes but it looked like thisshe was living her best life now...|isbn=B09STS96HS}}{{Frontpage|author=Will Brooker|title=The Truth About Lisa Jewell|rating=5|genre=Biography|summary=Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of Then it emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the most successful British authors I've never knowingly readlast year. Now meet Will Brooker, one of the thousands of less successful authors I quite confidently never have read. This book starts with the two meeting each other, as wellAll were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and shows how 2021 drew the two closer and closer togethersensible people. The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, None of her anecdote about cup cakes, the words of her latest book she was reciting, and her being in a ''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly what a get-up never commonly worn at the author events I get stupid thing to attend), but pulled Brooker, a professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the rabbit-hole that is Jewelldo's diverse outputexplanations applied. Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to follow her through a year in the published authorThey were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's life, working to make a success of killer on the latest title, and struggling with the next in lineloose. Jewell, due diligence appropriately done, agrees. And this is the result.|isbn=1529136024
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