Changes

Want to find out learn more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__

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}}

|author=Vanda SymonSamantha Harvey|title=Expectant Orbital|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Orbital'', a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the lives of a group of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Through a narrative lens that mirrors the astronauts' orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to see our planet in a wholly new light.|isbn=1529922933}}{{Frontpage|isbn=295967572X|title=Pale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and what the purpose of this journey is, is uncertain. Django found the tickets ''on the floor somewhere'' and has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the past as the pair travel to the station by coach and the train is a steam locomotive.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008551324|title=The Devil You Know (Detective Sam ShephardD S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster

|summary=Detective Sam Shepherd 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 approaching struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the start body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her maternity leave when there death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is a brutal, shocking murder to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an expectant woman in Dunedinearly parole date. Suddenly she finds herself embroiled in the hunt for a killer targeting pregnant womenNot much to ask, with all the extra pressure that entails being pregnant herself. is it? Finding herself put on desk duties, which she rails against, she just canThe new Deputy Police Constable doesn't let the case go think so and she starts 's even prepared to follow every thread to uncover 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 actually happening, and the increasingly disturbing worry of just what might happen next.|isbn=1914585577

|isbnauthor=1529125960Jon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Unnatural History|author=Jonathan KellermanVaim

|summary=Donny Klement 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 photographernew life on Orkney. Well, it was Adonis, actually It's been seven years since we heard from him, but Donny had stuck unless he got Danny but whichever - it's past tense now living with Willow Reeves and their young son, James, as well as Cassie, the daughter of his PA found him dead in his bedformer partner. Three shots were placed neatly through Willow's also his heart. The PAboss, Mel Gornick, is distraught and it falls to psychologist Alex Delaware to calm her down whilst Lieutenant Milo Sturgis gets more agitated as he tries to establish whatshe 's happened. Donny had just finished a series of photographs called 'should'The Wishers'be on maternity leave, but when the body of a popular islander, Archie Stout, is found, in the aftermath of a storm, she can't resist getting involved. He'd taken eight homeless people off been battered about the streets and asked them what they'd really like to be. They were then dressed up as their fantasy, photographed and sent on their way head with a generous gift in dollarsNeolithic stone - one of a pair - which had been stolen from a museum.

|author=Robin Birch and Jobe AndersonThea Lenarduzzi|title=Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver StreetTower|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Jayden''How unctuous are the fats of another's nose is forever life, how dizzying their sugars in a bookour bloodstream''. In this compelling novel, which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the phoenixes and unicorns identity of T, the world, for exampleprotagonist of this tale. Aisha Just as T's story is addicted to her new tabletbeing told, where she can see videos the story of anything that might be out there. The problem, as their mothers see it, a second protagonist is that they are never 'out there' themselvesunveiled: Annie, exploring the outside world daughter of Hackneya wealthy family in the 19th century, London. But when a narrowboat turns up carrying who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a science-minded, educational purposetower, and with a past involving Jaydencaptures T's cousin, they find a magical world they never knew existedimagination. For many of those mythological creatures are real, including the one Aisha thinks sheAnnie's seen on a bit of local footage. The crew of the boatfate is, including a living gargoyleabove all, are tasked with saving the rare critters – and the kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed an enticing story to join inT. Dare they side with LeilaIt is a story which she consumes avariciously, the woman on boardboth in a quest for truth and knowledge, and her relative who lives as a figure in a paintingservice of myth, fable and become saviours of the unseen?fantasy. |isbn=02415734831804271799

|isbnauthor=1913839656Claire-Louise Bennett|title=Let's Celebrate Being Different|author=Lainey DeeBig Kiss, Bye-Bye |rating=34.5|genre=For SharingLiterary Fiction|summary=Todd was excited about spending the weekend with his grandmotherEverything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, not least because she made the best beetle juiceis steeped in anguish and distortion. He packed two pairs Even a kiss, usually a symbol of dungarees intimacy and his favourite hat and then gathered together his button collection to show his grandmothercloseness, becomes evidence of love lost. She had promised to take him to When the Friday Night Club at the local community centre narrator cries out internally, ''come over here and Todd was pleased about this as he wanted kiss me,'' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to make new friendsconfirm her emotional numbness. At homeThe imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, his only friend was his mum and he wondered why that could be. Grandma thought that it might be because he looked differenther ex-partner, a ghost she conjures to test her detachment.|isbn=1804271934

|isbn=17873010360008405026|title=What July KnewA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Emily KochJane Casey

|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=When we first meet July Hooper on 20 July 1995 sheIt's just ten sixteen years since nine-year-oldRosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She's was never found and the investigation ground to a careful, meticulous childhalt. The care has been taught by Now, her fathermother, Mick HooperHelena, who is not prepared to discuss the death of his wifeand her father are dead in their bed. Initially, Julyit looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's mother, and any hint that something about the positioning of the conversation is heading bodies that way will lead to the necessity of a Lessonmakes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Other infractions of his requirements also lead What looked as though it was going to these Lessons be an open-and he's not even careful about whether or not the injuries are visible-shut case is now a complex double murder. JulyKerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's teacher is concerned and brings up the possibility of abuse with the head but her worries are dismisseddisappearance: Mick has been good to the schoolothers (such as Derwent's boss, has he not? The playground wouldn't have been resurfaced but for himUna Burt) are less convinced.

|author=Lucy AsheAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=Clara and OliviaThe Other Girl|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionAutobiography|summary=The year is 1933''We were born from the same body. I've never really wanted to think about this. The place? Sadler'' Ernaux's Wells. Ballerinas Clara work is always very candid and Olivia are sistersher tone transparent, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, on this raw epistolary text must be one of the insidemost intimate accounts I've read. And not on stageErnaux writes in direct address to her sister, however, eitherthis letter will never reach her. Why? Because thereAnnie Ernaux's sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, a lot few months before the vaccine was made compulsory in France, and 2 years before the author was even born. The large and instant void created by the jarring concept of writing to an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's process of reckoning with this giant absence in her life, an absence that builds a dancershe has always felt but often denied.|isbn=1804271845}}{{Frontpage|author=Maxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating=3. Some things that 5|genre=Biography|summary=Biographies are often seen as the form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be taught or learnt – disciplineseen as more objective and less personal. I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, attention to detail – and some thingsoffers a vibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. In the first section of this book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that : ''je ne sais quoi''you write not of real life as it is, that don't come from the classroombut of what you yourself imagine it to be. A stage presenceWhom would it help to know how I see this tower, a charmthat sea, a ''joie de vivreor that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''. The difference between Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a hard-workersubjective account, giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and a starAndreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=08615440801804271977

|isbn=00084544931529077745|title=All the Dangerous ThingsThe Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Stacy WillinghamAnn Cleeves

|summary=Isabelle Drake hasn't really slept for A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a year - wellman in the park near Rosebank, apart from the odd occasion when she lost track of time or drifted off a care home for a momenttroubled teens. It's now a year since her son, Mason, The dead man was stolen from his bed in Josh - one of the middle of care workers who was due to work a shift the night and Izzy before but who had never turned up. D I Vera Stanhope is consumed with guilt that she heard nothing and particularly about called in to investigate the murder - but her relief in only clue is the disappearance of one of the morning when she thought he was sleeping inresidents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. In Some people believe that year sheChloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's done everything diary makes it clear that she could to raise awareness about the caseadored Josh. She does interviews and when we meet her, knows that she's just been has to TrueCrimeCon where she gave a keynote presentation. On the plane back, she's approached by a podcaster, Waylon Spencer, who points out that she could do a podcast and get find Chloe to so many more people than she could by giving speeches discover what happened to a few hundred people at conferencesJosh.

|authorisbn=Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy GreeneB0FK5LHKD9|title=Fritz and KurtThe Colour of Memory|author=Christopher Bowden

|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=We start with the pair of brothers Fritz and KurtIt's been three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, and their muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the empty market place, helping the neighbours, being dutiful when it comes so we were very glad to the synagogue choir and at see a vocational school. Kurt has to make sure the lamps are turned on new novel arrive here at their very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a light switchBookbag Towers. But this is the time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to HitlerLike all Bowden's willstories, and instead of having there's a national vote to keep mystery at the Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. heart of ''KristallnachtThe Colour of Money'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the round-ups of Jews. These We like this running theme in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of an evacuation to Britain or the US, while Fritz author's work - take a mystery but give it different flavour and his father are, unknown initially to atmosphere each other, packed off on the same train to Buchenwald and the stone quarry theretime. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about…|isbn=024156574X

|isbnauthor=1529421241Olga Tokarczuk|title=Stay Buried|author=Kate WebbHouse of Day, House of Night

|summary=DI Matt Lockyer is on Major Crime Review which sounds quite grand until you realise that it's actually Ex-DCI Andy Flood has been a cold case unit Private Investigator for some time now, and there are just two of them he should be doing the jobquite well financially. LockyerUnfortunately, his daughter's not unduly worrieddefence against a murder charge drained his savings. His wife, Laura, though although hehas been trying to persuade him to retire - 's not quite so sure about DC Gemma Broad: she's probably capable of something bettermaybe go travelling or go on cruises. It was a bit of a shock when he got the phone call from Hedy Lambert: sheThat's in H M Prison Eastwood Park for murder - and it was Lockyer who put her therewhat 'ordinary people do', fourteen years ago. '' SheHe's keen not been entirely up front about the state of their savings. When Jack Durban tries to see persuade him and to tell him that take his case, it's the man everyone thought she'd murdered - but of the body turned out to be someone else - has returned home after being away for decadesmoney he could make that convinces him that this is a miscarriage of justice that he really should put right.

|isbn=B0BQXSYYTF1836284683|title=Just LookingThe Big Happy|author=Matthew TreeDavid Chadwick

|summary=It was the summer of 2035 and on Well! This is a cruise ship in Marseilles, Jim was celebrating his new-found wealth and the end of his marriage - not two celebrations generally found in the same sentence by a manmurder mystery unlike any other! He's watching the tornado - they're more common in Europe these days - that's keeping the cruise ship in port and falls into conversation with Jean-Pierre, a French journalist in his thirties. He writes for a relatively new paper, the right-wing ''La Tribune Gauloise'' and he's interesting if a little wordy on subjects such as the difference between 'France' and 'the French'. His partner, Helen, who's English and Jewish, keeps him in check to some extent.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=057137493X|title=The Other Half|author=Charlotte Vassell|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=''The room was full of the sort of people ''Tatler'' thinks you should know.''

I do love it when I open a book, it''The Other Half'' is the story of two men, both with what looks s nothing like the same surname. Rupert Beauchamp is the heir I expected it to a baronetcy be, and his thirtieth birthday party is it takes me on a catered-with-butler event at McDonalds in Camden Townwild ride. Think Bollinger and cocaine. His surname And that is pronounced just what happened with ''The Big Happy'Beecham'. Caius Beauchamp is I don't want to ruin a detective inspector with the Metropolitan police and is bi-racial. His surname is pronounced as you see it. The two encounter each other when Caius, out similar experience for a run, stumbles across the body any of Clemmie Oyou reading but I'Hara, Rupertll have to at least set the scene. Once that's girlfriend. Rupert thought that she was being deliberately late done, I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for his party. She was dead under a bushyourself.

|author=Joe ThomasSally Rooney|title=White RiotIntermezzo

|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction |summary= Whenever anyone writes fiction about politics there's always Sally Rooney has studied the danger chessboard of life and is something of making a grandmaster at putting it too reactionary; too rawinto words. Knee-jerk observations Her dialogue is gripping and hot takes that don't age well or properly capture so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the spirit of many relationships woven into this story, the moment. It takes a truly talented writer central one for readers to be able to capture unravel is the zeitgeist of a particular event or era of political historyfraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Austerity BritainIvan, the student riotsa socially awkward chess prodigy, Donald Trumpcontrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, Brexit – so much of what is, and has been, written a successful lawyer living in the immediate aftermath of these phenomena has been proven by time to be frothy and insubstantial and ultimately not particularly powerful or incisiveDublin. Inevitably (and perhaps disappointingly for people who do enjoy fiction of this nature)Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the best writing about current political events is that which is written when the events in question are no longer current and when time and experience has afforded the writer the benefit of a more objective viewbrothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn= 15294233760571365469

|authorisbn=Heather Fawcett1036916375|title=Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of FaeriesJust a Liverpool Lad|author=Peter McArdle

|genre=General FictionAutobiography|summary=Emily Wilde ''Just a Liverpool Lad '' is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, a collection of memories and she has travelled extensively, reflections from the years Peter McArdle spent growing up in and researched meticulously, to write her life's workaround Liverpool. Some are factual, such as the very first encyclopaedia family history of faeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeriesa sea-going family, she is not so good with peoplethe docks dominating lives. So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended Other stories blend seamlessly into the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the right track-might-have-been. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome It's a book to settle into and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedlyallow your mind to roam across your childhood memories, all charm and delightto think of simpler times when life seemed less constrained, much to Emilydespite the blitz that was a constant factor in McArdle's frustrationearly years. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with I'd never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and could appear after the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|isbn=0356519120all-clear was sounded.

|isbn=18484584361836285493|title=Just the Nicest CoupleThe Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Mary KubicaRob Keeley|rating=45|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=''The whole thing has spiralled out Will is a keen player of controlvideo games, turning into someone I'm nota conscientious student, a slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend.''  ''Just the Nicest Couple'' is the story But most of two couples: Christian and Lily Scottall, and Nina and Jake Hayeshe is an aspiring writer. The connection between the two English is that Lily and Nina teach in the same his favourite lesson at his school: Nina teaches English , Marlowe Park, and Lily covers high school algebraone at which he excels. The couples have mixed as a foursome but it's not a regular thing. Christian is a market research analyst and Jake is a neurosurgeon: they don't have much in common except their wives. Lily This hasn't said anything yetgone unnoticed by his headteacher, but Mrs Howarth, and she's pregnant. She has suggested to Will and his mum that he spends a lengthy history couple of miscarriages so she doesn't want to tempt fate by making the knowledge publicafternoons a week at a different school, Station Road, where his ability might be better extended.

|isbn=19145854021009473085|title=Dashboard Elvis is DeadThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=David F RossAnthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionPolitics and Society|summary=I reviewed David F RossSometimes it's 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 looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book [[Therefor you. If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Rossbook, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|Theretitle=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of years back compelling read and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it wasshould be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. It was 's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a gripping, emotionally wounding read, government has made and rereading my co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of it my main takeaway was the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that I might not have lavished enough praise on itoccurred and the situation in 2024.

|isbnauthor=178563335XJenny Valentine|title=Sea Defences|author=Hilary TaylorUs in the Before and After

|genre=Literary FictionTeens|summary=When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting Elk and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the children up. Her husbandMab are best friends, Christopheror more than that even, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds their friendship is a sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-once in-law won't let her see her grandsona lifetime connection. Holthorpe, They meet as children one day on the Norfolk coast, is a lovely place, trip out but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with the parish - and sheunfortunately they don's in awe of the vicar, Gail, but then shet get each other's been doing contact details at the job for more than thirty yearstime. Rachel But then chance brings them back together, and Christopher hoped that a walk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they neededare inseparable. And then Hannah went missing Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together.|isbn=1471196585

|authorisbn=Hadeer Elsbai1787333175|title=The Daughters of IzdiharYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=45|genre=FantasyPopular Science|summary= Drawing inspiration from Egypt, I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'The Daughters of Izdihar'after enjoying Adam Kay' explores s first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the lives workings of two women who could not be more differentthe NHS, yet find themselves fighting for the rights of women humour and weavers – those with magical abilities - in a society pitted against themautobiography. Nehal, born into the upper class, wishes ''You Don't Have to attend the Weaving Academy to learn to control her abilities and then join be Mad...'' promised the military, same elements 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 moved from physical problems to provide for her family mental illness and maintain their reputation, whilst secretly attending meetings of the Daughters work of Izdihar – a group campaigning for women's rightspsychiatrist. Giorgina also happens I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in love with Nico. What follows this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a story of an unjust society, filled person and it is always delivered with hypocrisy empathy and cruelty, from which blossoms a group of admirable women fighting for their rights and overcoming their personal obstaclesunderstanding.|isbn=0356520471

|author=Sarah Todd TaylorMariana Enriquez|title=Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Spoonful of SpyingSunny Place for Shady People|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersShort Stories|summary=[[Alice EclairMariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for Trouble achieving this uncanny familiarity by Sarah Todd Taylor|Last time around]], Alice Eclair had basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to prove herself as a spy and as a master at all things French and fancy and fondantan urban planning mishap, as the only way to save the day involved being an expert baker overcrowded homeless shelter and icer on the French railways. Here, we start on a bateaucrime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine -mouche in Paris, and even though the espionage isn't a complete success it proves to Alice and all within Argentina. The circumstances of her handlers that things characters are afoot. And there will never be more feet than at the World's Fair, reviving the huge expo so plausible 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 of being supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a humble yet world-class cake decorator, while seeking out cluessimilarly tangible texture. At stake? Pioneering flight technology that the enemy just cannot be allowed to smuggle out…|isbn=18399409721803511230

|authorisbn=Amanthi Harris1529934753|title=Beautiful PlaceThe Protest|author=Rob Rinder|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary= PadmaFor a little while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, a young Sri Lankanthe country's most famous living artist, has returned was not going to show up for the opening of his retrospective at the Villa Hibiscus on Royal Academy. Still, he arrived in the southern coast nick of her home countrytime, complete with his two wives and six children, one of whom filmed what happened. This is Being an influencer, you tend to do things like that, but it was fortunate that there was a place she spent her formative yearsrecord of the protest. It is not a place she was born intoLexi Williams, but an intern at the one she thinks RA, grabbed a spray can of as home. How she came blue paint from under a chair and proceeded to be at spray Bruce in the Villaface, how it became her home, and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide whilst shouting ''Stop the War''score. It seemed to be part of an ongoing series of 'blue-face' for attacks, but this gentle and yet subtly violent novelwas different. Padma's present fails to escape her past The can had been laced with cyanide, and much like the musical score of a film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the VillaSir Max Bruce was dead.|isbn=1784631930

|author=Nigel BainesAriel Saramandi|title=A Tricky Kind Portrait of Magican Island on Fire

|genre=Emerging ReadersPolitics and Society|summary=Cooper loves In this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to perform magic tricks. His father was a magicianintradermally dissect the sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, and named Cooper after tunneling deep into the great Tommy Cooper. But sadly Cooper's father died suddenly, wounds left by colonialism and now Cooper doesn't quite know who slavery to be, or expose how to bethese legacies still shape modern life. And when his dadSaramandi describes the country at one stage as 's prop rabbit starts talking to him, he 'rotting'really'' doesn't know what's going on anymore!, a blunt yet apt metaphor for the systemic decay brought about by the malignant forces of racism, patriarchy, environmental degradation and governmental dysfunction. Each essay in this collection serves as a kind of diagnostic, charting the various diseases afflicting the island state.|isbn=14449602611804271616

|isbnauthor=1542037239Pekka Harju-Autti|title=Death in Heels|author=Kitty MurphyLoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse

|genre=CrimeFantasy|summary=Set against the backdrop of DublinIt's drag scenethe eighteenth century, ''Death in Heels'' tells the story a time of Fi McKinnery discovery and her best friend, Robyn, who Britain is about to debut as drag queen Mae Bexpanding its foreign trade. What is meant to be a night of excitement soon takes a downward turn when fellow drag queenCaptain Julius Hawthorne, Evean experienced Scottish sea captain, takes is sent to the stage to mock Mae B. As if the night could not get any worse, when Fi heads home she discovers Eve dead Andaman Islands in a gutterhis endeavour. Fi is adamant that Eve was murderedAlong with his son, yet the drag communityPeter, and the Guardstheir cat, Michi, accept it as an accidentthey set off on a perilous voyage to these faraway lands. Fi takes it upon herself to solve The islands are beautiful and stunning in their scenery and the mystery as she fears for her friendsislanders' leader, Aarav, but instead ruins relationships as she delves deeperis keen to establish good relations.|isbn=B0DS1VGHH3

|isbnauthor=1800465270Helene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=The Lensky Connection|author=Conrad DelacroixLili is Crying

|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=When we first meet Major Valeri Grozky, it's June 1995 and he's at the Serafimov Cemetry First published in 1953 in St Petersburg. He's a pallbearer for his elder brother, Timur, whose death was drug-related. Valeri and Timur's father, KetoFrench, this novel is also a pallbearer timeless text which wrenches the hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and he's disgusted by what his son had become. Valeri thinks differently: he's determined to make his own stand against organised crime sentences from their proper position on the page and avenge Timur's death. Within a matter of monthspositions them elsewhere, his obsession will have cost him his marriage to Marisha and created a dubious link with Natassja Petrovskayadisjointed, a journalisttruncated. She's determined to expose any and all corruption - and she's less concerned than she ought to be about her own safety. To Like the lives of hercharacters, he's a good source. For him, it's a way to get information published, which wouldn't otherwise be possiblethey are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=1804271675

|isbnauthor=1399702289Tom Percival|title=A World of Curiosities (Chief Inspector Gamache)|author=Louise PennyThe Wrong Shoes

|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=After Will's life is difficult, in a harsh winter, the tiny Canadian village multitude of Three Pines is enjoying the arrival of springways. But something He is worrying Chief Inspector Armand Gamache bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir 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 Sûreté du Québec. Gamache had offered help to college, was working a young woman after the murder of her mother: he'd been less certain about her charismatic brother. For Jeancash-in-Guy, it hand job on a building site and had always been the other way aroundan accident. Now they're both in Throw into that mix the village fact that his mum and dad are separated, and neither can fathom whatWill's happeninglife seems bleak in every direction. Armand will soon find And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that they're not just in Three Pines but in his home and in his lifefeel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122

|isbnauthor=B0BHR8KWSKSylvie Cathrall|title=Dukkha|author=Martin HydeA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=45|genre=HorrorScience Fiction|summary=Sam wakes There are few greater joys than a book which lives up chained in a basement. He rails against his captor and the injustice of his imprisonment? Why? ''Why?'' But of course, he knows why. Sam is an erstwhile drug dealer who escaped this down and dirty life by going to a retreat and emerging as a neophyte Buddhist monkcompelling premise. Recently returning to join the community in his old neighbourhood, he knew his past would be hard to escape but he hadn't imagined it exploding into And this new life in quite such a violent fashionis one of them.|isbn= 0356522776

|isbn=B09XWSXSKY1786482126|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World ClockThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Robert Penee and Joanne GrodzinskiElly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Frederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldnBuilders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury't sleep. A tune, rather like apartments - when they discovered the ticking bones of a clock was playing over and over in his mindchild beneath a doorway. It happened every time he came to visit his grandfatherThere was no skull. He hadn't really wanted to come; after all, he's ten now and all those old clocks don't appeal to him anymore. ''Who needs old clocks anywayWas this a ritual killing or murder? All they do is tell the timeInevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. And time isnIt's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't good for anything...'' And , that was why he was looking at she is pregnant with his child as a result of the clock beside the bedone night they spent together some three months ago. It was nearly twelve o'clock but at midnight the clock chimed only six timesHer condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness. There was nothing for it but to go and find grandad - but where was he? And why had all the clocks stopped at twelve o'clock?

|isbnauthor=3756228711Guadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=CDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'|author=Hans BodmerAccidentals|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryShort Stories|summary=''The history This collection was truly enchanting in all senses of the development word: spellbinding with its fantastical, magical elements and charming in its gentle portrayal of IT could fill books of several hundred pagesnature and human relationships.'' Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and precisely, her stories structured by a wisdom that. He has chosen appears to want to tell teach us something about the short, but explosive, history of the Control Data Company, CDC, for whom he worked. It's a fascinating tale, told in a mixture of technological summary and wry anecdoteworld. |isbn=1804271470

|isbn=15293566600008551375|title=The SanctuaryWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Emma HaughtonNeil Lancaster|rating=34.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=It Leanne Wilson's body was found at the quiet which woke Zoey up - or, ratherbottom of a Scottish mountain, seemingly the absence result of the noise which was a constant in New Yorktragic accident. Here it was silent and the heat was overwhelming. When she She'd looked out of the window all so happy, too, when she could see was the desertposted her intentions on Facebook. How did Her friends were relieved as she get here? Zoey was house-sitting for Uncle Dan and his two Manx cats and she remembered that she'd been just out with Franny and Rocco last night. She knew that she'd had quite 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 an unpleasant relationship, but as it looked like she thought back, a memory of sirens, flashing lights and of being pushed into a car snagged on the edge of was living her mind.}}{{Frontpage|author=Christopher Golden|title=Road of Bones|rating=3best life now.5|genre=Horror|summary=The Kolyma Highway… the 'Road of Bones'… the R504. Stretching for over a thousand miles across Siberia, Then it's one of the world's most notorious routes. For months of emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the last year it's a spread of sheet ice suspended above the permafrost surrounding it, while its 'spring' sees it turn into a huge blodge of unremitting, apocalyptic-level mud, which dries into rutted, puddly dust. I don't think google streetview updates it very often. Built because Stalin wanted so much uranium and other Siberian mineralsAll were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and because he wanted to give too many sensible people a lesson, it legendarily cost a life every metre it covers. You can easily find documentaries about it online, but that's a bit rich, for one None of our main characters, Felix the 'Teig' Teigland, is what a film-maker, doing a recce with his cameraman buddy, John Prentiss – who's mostly there stupid thing to encourage the project to fruition to claw back some of the funds he'd invested in the pairdo's prior TV projectsexplanations applied. They pick up their oh-so-chatty local guide, gain the company of were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's a local beauty, and fetch up at killer on the guide's childhood villageloose. And that's where things start to go awry…|isbn=1803361476