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==The Best New Books==
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1848458436Paul B Preciado|title=Just the Nicest Couple|author=Mary KubicaDysphoria Mundi|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersPolitics and Society|summary=''The whole thing has spiralled out It is never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of control, turning into someone I'm not.childhood''
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1914585402Samantha Harvey|title=Dashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F RossOrbital
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I reviewed David F RossIn 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''s book [[ThereOrbital's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] , a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the lives of a couple group of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it wasastronauts aboard the International Space Station. It was Through a grippingnarrative lens that mirrors the astronauts' orbital perspective, emotionally wounding read, and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on itHarvey invites readers to see our planet in a wholly new light.|isbn=1529922933
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=178563335X295967572X|title=Sea DefencesPale Pieces|author=Hilary TaylorG M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=When we first meet Rachel Bird she's Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why train journey with his companion Django. Where they're held when you need to pick going and what the children up. Her husbandpurpose of this journey is, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioneris uncertain. ThelmaDjango found the tickets 's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, floor somewhere'' and has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not? Not much else is a lovely place, clear either - but Rachel is struggling we are probably in the past as the pair travel to develop a real bond with the parish - station by coach and she's in awe of the vicar, Gail, but then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. Rachel and Christopher hoped that train is a walk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missingsteam locomotive.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Hadeer Elsbai0008551324|title=The Daughters Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=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 missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of Izdiharhis sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? 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 anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.}}{{Frontpage|author=Jon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Vaim
|rating=4
|genre=FantasyLiterary Fiction|summary= Drawing inspiration from Egypt, ''The Daughters of IzdiharAll was strange'' explores ... This haunting phrase encapsulates the lives pervading sense of two women who otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, a fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not be feel more different, yet find themselves fighting real for the rights of women Jatgeir and weavers – those with magical abilities - in a society pitted against them. NehalEline, born into the upper class, wishes to attend the Weaving Academy to learn to control her abilities and then join the military, but instead she is forced into an arranged marriage with Nico. Giorgina on the other hand did not have a privileged upbringing like Nehal and feels great pressure to provide for her family and maintain their reputation, whilst secretly attending meetings two of the Daughters of Izdihar – a group campaigning for women's rights. Giorgina also happens to be protagonists caught in love with Nico. What follows is a story of an unjust society, filled with hypocrisy and cruelty, from which blossoms a group of admirable women fighting for their rights and overcoming their personal obstaclesits melancholic current.|isbn=03565204711804271829
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sarah Todd Taylor1035043092|title=Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Spoonful of SpyingThe Killing Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=I can't have been the only person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Alice EclairWild Fire (Shetland, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for Trouble Book 8) by Sarah Todd TaylorAnn Cleeves|Last time aroundleft Shetland]], Alice Eclair had to prove herself as start a spy new life on Orkney. It'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 a master at all things French and fancy and fondantCassie, as the only way to save the day involved being an expert baker and icer on the French railwaysdaughter of his former partner. HereWillow's also his boss, we start and she ''should'' be on maternity leave, but when the body of a bateau-mouche popular islander, Archie Stout, is found, in Paristhe aftermath of a storm, and even though the espionage isnshe can't a complete success it proves to Alice and her handlers that things are afootresist getting involved. And there will never be more feet than at the World He's Fair, reviving d been battered about the huge expo that gave the city the Eiffel Tower and this time showing all her interwar glories off to the world. Once again Alice will have to present the front to the world head with a Neolithic stone - one of being a humble yet worldpair -class cake decorator, while seeking out clueswhich had been stolen from a museum. At stake? Pioneering flight technology that the enemy just cannot be allowed to smuggle out…|isbn=1839940972
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{{Frontpage
|author=Amanthi HarrisThea Lenarduzzi|title=Beautiful PlaceThe Tower
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Padma''How unctuous are the fats of another's life, a young Sri Lankanhow dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. In this compelling novel, has returned to Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the Villa Hibiscus on identity of T, the southern coast protagonist of her home countrythis tale. This Just as T's story is being told, the story of a place she spent her formative years. It second protagonist is not a place she was born intounveiled: Annie, but the one she thinks daughter of as home. How she came to be at a wealthy family in the Villa19th century, how it became her homewho died of tuberculosis after being locked in a tower, and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the captures T''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novels imagination. PadmaAnnie's present fails fate is, above all, an enticing story to escape her past T. It is a story which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and much like the musical score knowledge, and in service of a filmmyth, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villafable and fantasy. |isbn=17846319301804271799
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{{Frontpage
|author=Nigel BainesClaire-Louise Bennett|title=A Tricky Kind of MagicBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=Emerging ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Cooper loves Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, usually a symbol of intimacy and closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. When the narrator cries out internally, ''come over here and kiss me,'' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, a ghost she conjures to perform magic trickstest her detachment.|isbn=1804271934}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008405026|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. His father She was never found and the investigation ground to a magicianhalt. Now, her mother, Helena, and named Cooper after the great Tommy Cooperher father are dead in their bed. But sadly CooperInitially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's father died suddenly, something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and now Cooper doesn't quite know who to be, or how her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to bean open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. And when his dadKerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's prop rabbit starts talking to him, he ''really'' doesn't know whatdisappearance: others (such as Derwent's going on anymore!|isbn=1444960261boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1542037239Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=Death in Heels|author=Kitty MurphyThe Other Girl
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeAutobiography|summary=Set against ''We were born from the backdrop of Dublinsame body. I's drag scene, ve never really wanted to think about this.''Death in Heels Ernaux'' tells the story of Fi McKinnery s work is always very candid and her best friendtone transparent, Robyn, who is about to debut as drag queen Mae Bbut this raw epistolary text must be one of the most intimate accounts I've read. What is meant Ernaux writes in direct address to be a night of excitement soon takes a downward turn when fellow drag queenher sister, Evehowever, takes to the stage to mock Mae Bthis letter will never reach her. As if the night could not get any worseWhy? Because Annie Ernaux's sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, when Fi heads home she discovers Eve dead in a gutter. Fi is adamant that Eve few months before the vaccine was murderedmade compulsory in France, yet and 2 years before the drag community, author was even born. The large and instant void created by the Guardsjarring concept of writing to an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's process of reckoning with this giant absence in her life, accept it as an accident. Fi takes it upon herself to solve the mystery as absence that she fears for her friends, has always felt but instead ruins relationships as she delves deeperoften denied.|isbn=1804271845
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1800465270Maxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=The Lensky Connection|author=Conrad DelacroixReminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersBiography|summary=When we first meet Major Valeri Grozky, Biographies are often seen as the form of life-writing which offers less colour; it's June 1995 can be seen as more objective and he's at the Serafimov Cemetry in St Petersburgless personal. He's I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and offers a pallbearer for vibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his elder brother, Timur, whose death was drug-relatedliterary contemporaries. Valeri and Timur's fatherIn the first section of this book, Keto, is also a pallbearer and he's disgusted by what Tolstoy complains to his son had become. Valeri thinks differentlyfriend Gorky that: he's determined to make his own stand against organised crime and avenge Timur's death. Within a matter you write not of monthsreal life as it is, his obsession will have cost him his marriage but of what you yourself imagine it to Marisha and created a dubious link with Natassja Petrovskaya, a journalistbe. She's determined Whom would it help to expose any and all corruption know how I see this tower, that sea, or that Tartar - and shewhy should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''s less concerned than she ought to be about her own safety. To herWell, he's Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a good source. For himsubjective account, it's a way giving us access to get information publishedhow he saw Tolstoy, which wouldn't otherwise be possibleChekhov and Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=1804271977
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=13997022891529077745|title=A World of Curiosities The Dark Wives (Chief Inspector GamacheD I Vera Stanhope)|author=Louise PennyAnn Cleeves|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=After a harsh winter, A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the tiny Canadian village body of Three Pines is enjoying a man in the arrival of springpark near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. But something is worrying Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and Inspector JeanThe dead man was Josh -Guy Beauvoir one of the Sûreté du Québeccare workers who was due to work a shift the night before but who had never turned up. Gamache had offered help D I Vera Stanhope is called in to a young woman after investigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of her mother: he'd been less certain about her charismatic brotherthe residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. For Jean-Guy, it had always been Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the other way around. Now they're both in death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the village and neither can fathom whatgirl's happeningdiary makes it clear that she adored Josh. Armand will soon She knows that she has to find that they're not just in Three Pines but in his home and in his lifeChloe to discover what happened to Josh.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0BHR8KWSKB0FK5LHKD9|title=DukkhaThe Colour of Memory|author=Martin HydeChristopher Bowden
|rating=4
|genre=HorrorGeneral Fiction|summary=Sam wakes up chained in It's been three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, so we were very glad to see a basementnew novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. He rails against his captor and Like all Bowden's stories, there's a mystery at the injustice heart of his imprisonment? Why? ''Why?The Colour of Money'' But of course, he knows why. Sam is We like this running theme in an erstwhile drug dealer who escaped this down and dirty life by going to a retreat and emerging as author's work - take a neophyte Buddhist monk. Recently returning to join the community in his old neighbourhood, he knew his past would be hard to escape mystery but he hadn't imagined give it exploding into this new life in quite such a violent fashiondifferent flavour and atmosphere each time.
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{{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=B09XWSXSKYhenleyA|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World ClockUltimate Obsession|author=Robert Penee and Joanne GrodzinskiDai Henley
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Frederick (or FredEx-DCI Andy Flood has been a Private Investigator for some time now, but never Freddy, please) couldn't sleepand he should be doing quite well financially. A tuneUnfortunately, rather like the ticking of his daughter's defence against a clock was playing over and over in murder charge drained his mindsavings. It happened every time he came His wife, Laura, has been trying to visit his grandfather. He hadn't really wanted persuade him to come; after all, heretire - 's ten now and all those old clocks don't appeal to him anymoremaybe go travelling or go on cruises. That's what 'Who needs old clocks anyway? All they ordinary people do is tell the time. And time isn't good for anything...,'' And that was why he was looking at the clock beside the bed. It was nearly twelve oHe'clock but at midnight s not been entirely up front about the clock chimed only six timesstate of their savings. There was nothing for When Jack Durban tries to persuade him to take his case, it but to go and find grandad - but where was 's the thought of the money he could make that convinces him that this is a miscarriage of justice that he? And why had all the clocks stopped at twelve o'clock?really should put right.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=37562287111836284683|title=CDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'Big Happy|author=Hans BodmerDavid Chadwick|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryDystopian Fiction|summary=''The history of the development of IT could fill books of several hundred pages.''Well! This is a murder mystery unlike any other!
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529356660Sally Rooney|title=The Sanctuary|author=Emma HaughtonIntermezzo|rating=34.5|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction |summary=It was Sally Rooney has studied the quiet which woke Zoey up - or, rather, the absence chessboard of life and is something of the noise which was a constant in New Yorkgrandmaster at putting it into words. Here it was silent Her dialogue is gripping and the heat was overwhelmingso brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. When she looked out of Among the window all she could see was many relationships woven into this story, the desert. How did she get here? Zoey was house-sitting central one for Uncle Dan readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his two Manx cats and she remembered that she'd been out with Franny and Rocco last nightolder brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. She knew that sheFollowing their father'd had quite s passing after a lot to drink but how could she have got to the desert from New York? She had no memory of getting on a plane but as she thought back, a memory of sirenslong battle with cancer, flashing lights and of being pushed into a car snagged on the edge of her mindbrothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Christopher Golden1036916375|title=Road of BonesJust a Liverpool Lad|author=Peter McArdle|rating=3.54|genre=HorrorAutobiography|summary=The Kolyma Highway… the 'Road of Bones'… the R504. Stretching for over Just a thousand miles across Siberia, itLiverpool Lad ''s one is a collection of memories and reflections from the world's most notorious routesyears Peter McArdle spent growing up in and around Liverpool. For months of Some are factual, such as the year it's a spread family history of sheet ice suspended above the permafrost surrounding it, while its 'spring' sees it turn into a huge blodge of unremitting, apocalypticsea-level mudgoing family, which dries with the docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into rutted, puddly dustthe what-might-have-been. I donIt't think google streetview updates it very often. Built because Stalin wanted so much uranium s a book to settle into and other Siberian mineralsallow your mind to roam across your childhood memories, and because he wanted to give too many people a lesson, it legendarily cost a think of simpler times when life every metre it covers. You can easily find documentaries about it onlineseemed less constrained, but despite the blitz that's a bit rich, for one of our main characters, Felix 'Teig' Teigland, is a film-maker, doing was a recce with his cameraman buddy, John Prentiss – who's mostly there to encourage the project to fruition to claw back some of the funds he'd invested constant factor in the pairMcArdle's prior TV projectsearly years. They pick up their ohI'd never heard of parachute mines before -so-chatty local guide, gain the company of a local beauty, but they were almost soundless and fetch up at could appear after the guide's childhood villageall-clear was sounded. And that's where things start to go awry…|isbn=1803361476
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18387761841836285493|title=Her Majesty the Queen Investigates: Murder Most RoyalThe Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=S J BennettRob Keeley
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=''The QueenWill is a keen player of video games, like the sunrise and the tidesa conscientious student, was generally a reliable way of marking time.'' It seemed to begin as slightly annoying brother and a coldsupportive friend. Hardly surprisingBut most of all, really, as Prince Philip had been suffering for a couple of days but seemed to be getting betterhe is an aspiring writer. HopefullyEnglish is his favourite lesson at his school, the Queen thoughtMarlowe Park, her cold would go the same way. She'd probably caught it from and one of the great-grandchildrenat which he excels. Unfortunately, it didnThis hasn't get better gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and when the doctor called he diagnosed full-blown flu. She she has suggested to Will and the Duke were due to go to Sandringham by train that day but the doctor put his foot down. He'd have preferred mum that the queen have he spends a couple of afternoons a week at a few days' bed rest before venturing out but had to different school, Station Road, where his ability might be satisfied with the thought that they'd go by helicopter the following day. It was annoying: people would be ready for her today and Her Majesty did not like to disappointbetter extended.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Peter Owen Jones1009473085|title=Conversations with NatureThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Spirituality Politics and ReligionSociety|summary= One of the comments made when I was offered this beautiful Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book for review was by describing what it ''isn't'' and that itapplies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''s not very long. Having If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book twice overfor you. If that's what you're looking for, Idon'm brought back inescapably t think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to the Spanish proverb that Life may be short, but it politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is broadan entirely different beast. In It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this case I'm brought to as the most important. This book follows the idea that well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the length state of life is not the point; nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the point is its depthchanges that occurred and the situation in 2024. Peter Owen Jones dives deep.|isbn=1912992418
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1916459943Jenny Valentine|title=Squeakily Baby|author=Beth WebbUs in the Before and After|rating=45|genre=For SharingTeens|summary=Much as mothers love Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their babies, there's something they all dread - friendship is a once in a squeakily babylifetime connection. He's so tired They meet as children one day on a trip out but he canunfortunately they don't - or wonget each other't - go to sleep: insteads contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, he just lies on his blanket and ''wails''they are inseparable. The sea offers to help. It rocks Baby gently Something has happened though, something terrible and the waves sing ''hushtragic, hush''. Think of gentle wavelets falling onto a sandy beach and you have the sound perfectly. The mermaids join in - ''la lounow they must work through their grief, la lay...'' And for a moment it seems to have worked as Baby closes his eyes. Then a seagull '''shouts''' and we know exactly what's going to happen nexttheir friendship, together.|isbn=1471196585
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Robin Stevens1787333175|title=The Ministry of Unladylike ActivityYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersPopular Science|summary=May Wong I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is a long way from her family in Hong Kong. She’s stuck in her school, Deepdean, and desperate Going to get awayHurt}}, and do something useful to help end a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the war NHS, humour and autobiography. ''You Don't Have to get homebe Mad. She just knows that she would make ..'' promised the perfect spy! And when she finds herself turned away by same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the Ministry, she takes matters into her own hands, along with work of a boy she meets outside the Ministry, Ericpsychiatrist. They both go undercover in a large country house, pretending I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be evacuees, looking for humour in an attempt to prove that someone there is passing secrets to this setting but the Nazis. But there laughter is directed at a lot more going on in Elysium Hall situation rather than either them have imagined, a person and suddenly they find themselves in the middle of a murder scene, it is always delivered with even more to try to unravel empathy and solveunderstanding.|isbn=0241429862
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1919635017Mariana Enriquez|title=A Thief to Catch a Killer|author=Kitt TownsendSunny Place for Shady People|rating=45|genre=TeensShort Stories|summary= Solomon Klyne isn't a bad ladMariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, so why is he running around London committing a series achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of robberies? And how did he learn disused refrigerators due to crack safes? You'll have to wait to get an answer to the second question because I avoid spoilersurban planning mishap, an overcrowded homeless shelter and a crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. But I'll answer The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the first one: for his grandmother..supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture.|isbn=1803511230
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=13985153881529934753|title=The Boy and the DogProtest|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)Rob Rinder
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=First of allFor 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 earthquakeRoyal Academy. Still, deep he arrived in the ocean floornick of time, which created the tsunami complete with his two wives and thissix children, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdownone of whom filmed what happened. The result Being an influencer, you tend to do things like that, but it was fortunate that there was complete and utter devastationa record of the protest. The deaths were uncountableLexi Williams, and an intern at the loss RA, grabbed a spray can of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated blue paint from their owners came far down under a chair and proceeded to spray Bruce in the list of priorities but - six months after face, whilst shouting ''Stop the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience storeWar''. He wasnIt seemed to be part of an ongoing series of 'blue-face't a dog person attacks, but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door this was different. The can had been laced with cyanide, and Tamon the dog jumped inSir Max Bruce was dead.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529153050Ariel Saramandi|title=Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim BensonPortrait of an Island on Fire|rating=4.5|genre=HumourPolitics and Society|summary=Seeking some light relief from In this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the current political turmoil which is coming sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, tunneling deep into the wounds left by colonialism and slavery to seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards expose how these legacies still shape modern life. Saramandi describes the country at one stage as ''Britainrotting's Best Political Cartoons of 2022''. Sharp eyes will have noted that we're not , a blunt yet through apt metaphor for the year: systemic decay brought about by the cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022malignant forces of racism, patriarchy, environmental degradation and governmental dysfunction. Who can imagine what there will be to come Each essay in this collection serves as a kind of diagnostic, charting the various diseases afflicting the 2023 edition?island state.|isbn=1804271616
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{{Frontpage
|author=Lisa GrayPekka Harju-Autti|title=The Dark RoomLoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeFantasy|summary=What if you knew someone was dead, because youIt'd watched them die several years agos the eighteenth century, but then you come across a photograph that seemed to show their murder happened in a different place time of discovery and time? This Britain is what happens to Leonard in this storyexpanding its foreign trade. He is an ex-crime reporter for a newspaperCaptain Julius Hawthorne, and since leaving journalism he's found himself an unusual hobby where he finds oldexperienced Scottish sea captain, undeveloped rolls of film and develops them is sent to the Andaman Islands in his own dark room at homeendeavour. One of these photographs turns out to show the murder scene of a young woman he met some years agoAlong with his son, Peter, and who he ''thought'' he had watched die in front of him one night in their cat, Michi, they set off on a hotelperilous voyage to these faraway lands. He'd felt guilty ever since that night, The islands are beautiful and lost everything because of it - his fiancee stunning in their scenery and his career - but now finds himself wondering if she hadnthe islanders't really died the night she was with himleader, Aarav, what on earth actually happened?is keen to establish good relations.|isbn=154203535XB0DS1VGHH3
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{{Frontpage
|author=Natasha Hastings Helene Bessette and Alex T SmithKate Briggs (translator)|title=The Miraculous Sweetmakers: The Frost FairLili is Crying|rating=34.5|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=''The River Thames had frozen to death First published in its sleep.'' And thus the Frost Fair could happen – people trading on the completely iced-over river1953 in French, like our heroine Thomasina's father with his gingerbread and confectionery shop. Thomasina will be working this novel is a timeless text which wrenches the Fair too – but her twin brother won't, hearts of its readers just as he dies in Chapter One. It was a tragedy she feels no small guilt for, Bessette wrenches words and which has made her father a sullen, closed shop – sentences from their proper position on the page and her bed-bound mother has spoken not a word – not even opened her eyespositions them elsewhere, more or less – in the four years sincedisjointed, eithertruncated. But into Like the dark, frosted London comes Inigo, with supreme magical powers, and a willingness to help Thomasina. Not only can he introduce lives of her to the fantastical Other Frost Fair, using the river surface at night for no end of mystical beasts and characters and their happenings, but he has a unique proposal for Thomasina, which will shake her world to its corethey are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=00084960561804271675
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams Tom Percival|title=The Book of Hope Wrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society Confident Readers|summary= The done thing Will's life is to read difficult, in a book all multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the way through before you sit down to review it. I’m making an exception herewrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because I don’t want to lose any his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the experience college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of reading this amazing bookhope. He is good at art, I want and clings to capture it as it hits me. And it the moments of joy when he is hitting me. This beautiful book has me in tearsdrawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. |isbn=024147857X1398527122
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|isbnauthor=1529504767Sylvie Cathrall|title=The Christmas Doll (The Repair Shop Stories)|author=Amy Sparkes and Katie HickeyA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=For SharingScience Fiction|summary=Susan was very young when she was evacuated from London in 1939 and nervous about how she would be greeted when she got There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to her final destinationa compelling premise. She needn't have worried though as she went to the home And this is one of Mr and Mrs Russell, who couldn't have been kinder to her. She even had her own room - all to herself. Gradually she relaxed and began to enjoy her life. She'd help Mrs Russell with the baking and when it came to Christmas Eve Susan and Mr Russell put the decorations on the Christmas tree. The best surprise happened the following morningthem.|isbn= 0356522776
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|authorisbn=1786482126|title=Lilja Sigurdardottir and Quentin Bates The Janus Stone (translatorDr Ruth Galloway)|titleauthor=Red as BloodElly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=When Flosi’s wife goes missing, all Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the evidence seems site was going to point towards her having been kidnapped. The ransom note tells him not to have any contact with hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the police, so instead he enlists the help bones of Arora, a financial investigatorchild beneath a doorway. She manages to persuade Flosi that they will need the help of the police There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, and she calls her detective friendDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, Danielbut Nelson doesn't, whom that she met when he was investigating her sister’s disappearanceis pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Together, they start to secretly investigate Gudrun’s disappearance Her condition will be obvious before long, trying not least because Ruth is prone to arouse the suspicion sudden bouts of anyone, since they have no idea who the kidnappers might be, yet the more they uncover, the more confusing things becomesickness.|isbn=1914585321
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0861541995Guadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=Wolf Pack|author=Will DeanThe Accidentals
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeShort Stories|summary=The story began when Tuva Moodyson drove her Hilux pickup truck on the road north This collection was truly enchanting in all senses of Visberg. She sees blood on the road word: spellbinding with its fantastical, magical elements and a creature on charming in its side near the pine treesgentle portrayal of nature and human relationships. It will turn out to be BroncoGuadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and precisely, a Swedish Elkhound, who has been attacked her stories structured by a wolf. Tuva takes Bronco and his owner, Bengt Nyberg, to the vet. Bronco didn't make it but on the way, Nyberg told Tuva wisdom that he was out looking for his niece, twenty-year-old Elsa Nyberg, who had gone missing. She'd been working at Rose Farm and Moodyson's journalist's instincts are soon brought appears to the fore. Rose Farm is now home want to a group of survivalists but back in 1987 teach us something about the then owner, Johan Svenson murdered his wife, and his two eldest children and then killed himselfworld. His newborn child, just four weeks old survived. Does this have any connection to the disappearance of Elsa Nyberg?|isbn=1804271470
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|authorisbn=Alison Hughes0008551375|title=FlyWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=This is Leanne Wilson's body was found at the bottom of a very impressive readScottish mountain, as it does seemingly the result of a lot of what mainstream teen and tween fiction still struggles withtragic accident. Its focus is courtesy of the first-person narration from FlyShe'd looked so happy, a secondary school lad with cerebral palsytoo, a down-when she posted her intentions on-Facebook. Her friends were relieved as she was just out of an unpleasant relationship, but it looked like she was living her-luck single mom nearing retirement from being a cleaner, a carer while at schoolbest life now. Then it emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the last year. All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and a bundle of assumptions sensible people lay on him. First they assume that with None of the 'what a broken body comes a broken mind, then stupid thing to do' explanations applied. They were all alone when they decide hedied: DS Max Craigie is certain there's a maths savant – they even believe they can get away with calling him Fly, which isn't his real name, but everybody just uses itkiller on the loose.|isbn=1525305832
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