134,727
edits
Changes
no edit summary
There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY: Reviews}}''' [[:Category:Reviews|reviews]] at TheBookbag.
Want to find out learn more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__
==The Best New Books==
'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''
{{Frontpage
|author=Paul B Preciado
|title=Dysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=''It is never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood''
Through this hybrid text, consisting of arias, letters, essays and autofiction, Preciado expresses his own hybrid self, and brings forth a new sensorium as an offering to the new generation, a new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a sign of political apathy. Rather, it is the proportional, valid response to ''the epistemological and political crack we are living through, and the tension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''. The whole text is framed against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to emerge on a global scale, or as ''pangea covidica'Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews '. Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a sign of books about weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to be published]]''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''.|isbn=1804271454}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008385068Samantha Harvey|title=The Midnight Feast|author=Lucy FoleyOrbital
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=ItIn 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for 's midsummer on the Dorset coast and guests gather at The Manor. It's their opening weekend and splendid celebrations are promised. ItOrbital's all headed up by Francesca Meadows. The Manor was her ancestral home and she's converted it into an impressive retreat for the wealthy and famous. Her husband, Owen, was a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the architect and work is still ongoing on parts lives of a group of astronauts aboard the siteInternational Space Station. The heat is oppressive and amongst Through a narrative lens that mirrors the guests are enemies as well as friends. Old scores are going astronauts' orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to be settled and it won't be long before see our planet in a body is foundwholly new light.|isbn=1529922933
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Ashley Hickson-Lovence295967572X|title=Wild EastPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=4.5|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=Written in verse, this Our unnamed narrator is Ronny's story, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has about to move to Norwich and start at begin a mostly white schooltrain journey with his companion Django. The move is initiated by RonnyWhere they's mum who re going and what the purpose of this journey is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic event, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a new town, a new school, and keep himself out of troubleis uncertain. He listens to music constantly, Django found the tickets ''on the floor somewhere'' and has always dreamed of being a rapperpersuaded our narrator to accompany him. But now, Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in this new school, his teacher encourages him the past as the pair travel to be part of a poetry writing workshop group and, slowly, Ronny begins to see the connections between rap and poetry, station by coach and the power of creativity and crafting your wordstrain is a steam locomotive.|isbn=0241645441
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=16358668470008551324|title=The Lavender CompanionDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin VesciNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=LifestyleCrime|summary=It's strange, unusual for anyone from the things that make you ''immediately'' feel that this is Hardie family to approach the book for youpolice. Before I started reading ''The Lavender Companion'', I visited Neither side likes or has any respect for the author's [https://wwwother.pinelavenderfarm.com/ website] But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and therehe's a picture prepared to tell the police where the body of a slice of chocolate cake on the homepage. I don't eat cakes missing person is buried and desserts - but I wanted that cake viscerallywho was responsible for her death. (There's a recipe in the bookThis person, he promises, which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book is someone big and I was told to make a mess of it. Notes in will be worth the margins are sanctionedpolice doing what he wants. You get And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to fold down serve the corners remainder of pageshis sentence and to get an early parole date. You suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem. Not much to ask, is it? I The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she'loveds 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'' this book alreadys happening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Rob KeeleyJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special editionVaim
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Around here''All was strange''... This haunting phrase encapsulates the pervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, a fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and Eline, two of the protagonists caught in its melancholic current.|isbn=1804271829}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035043092|title=The Killing Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=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 new life on Orkney. It's been seven years since weheard from him, but he're big fans s now living with Willow Reeves and their young son, James, as well as Cassie, the daughter of childrenhis former partner. Willow's author Rob Keeleyalso his boss, and she ''should'' 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's d been battered about the head with a Neolithic stone - one of a pair - which had been stolen from a ball museum.}}{{Frontpage|author=Thea Lenarduzzi|title=The Tower|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= ''How unctuous are the fats of happy positivityanother's life, he understands children, and he writes for how dizzying their pleasure and enjoyment, not to lecture or hectorsugars in our bloodstream''.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jenny Valentine0008405026|title=Us A Stranger in the Before and AfterFamily (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Elk It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and Mab are best friendsthe investigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, or more than that evenHelena, and her father are dead in their friendship is a once in a lifetime connectionbed. They meet as children one day on Initially, it looks like a trip out straightforward murder/suicide but unfortunately they don't get each otherthere's contact details at something about the positioning of the timebodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened What looked as though, something terrible and tragic, it was going to be an open-and -shut case is now they must work through their griefa complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, and their friendship, togetherUna Burt) are less convinced.|isbn=1471196585
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Kieran Larwood Annie Ernaux and Joe Todd-StantonAlison L. Strayer (translator)|title=Dungeon Runners: Hero TrialThe Other Girl
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersAutobiography|summary=Meet Kit''We were born from the same body. Like most 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 people most intimate accounts I've read. Ernaux writes in his worlddirect address to her sister, it seemshowever, he is an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the sport where a team this letter will never reach her. Why? Because Annie Ernaux's sister died of warrior, mage and healer enter specially prepared, century-diphtheria at 6 years old, magical mazes, and race to a few months before the exitvaccine was made compulsory in France, perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and 2 years before the points they grant you along the wayauthor was even born. Unfortunately for Kit, The large and instant void created by the only thing hejarring concept of writing to an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's seen process of the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is reckoning with this giant absence in her life, an absence that one team she has been retired, eaten, and a new trio of questors is neededalways felt but often denied. Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to the goading from the token bully of his world and stumbled into declaring he'll enter as a team. What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, and how could he possibly hope to succeed?|isbn=18399451841804271845
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Saima MirMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=VengeanceReminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev
|rating=3.5
|genre=ThrillersBiography|summary= I was instantly intrigued by Biographies are often seen as the premise form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. I think that Gorky completely rejects this novel – an organised crime syndicate in perspective, and offers a vibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. In the north first section of England run by a Muslim woman. The fact this book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that it was the second in a series I hadn: 't read didn't stop me – you write not of real life as it is, but of what you yourself imagine it to be. Whom would it help to know how I've jumped midway into a few series before (on page and screen) and see this tower, that sea, or that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it needn?'t be a hindrance if it's good enough. And that wasn't Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a problem here. Vengeance swiftly brings you up subjective account, giving us access to speedhow he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and I never felt lostAndreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=08615415611804271977
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Stuart Douglas1529077745|title=Lowe and Le Breton Mysteries - Death at the Dress RehearsalThe Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=34.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=During location filming for A man walking his 1970's sitcom 'Floggit and Leggit', leading man Edward Lowe stumbles across dog in the early morning discovered the dead body of a woman on man in the edge of park near Rosebank, a reservoircare home for troubled teens. The police seem happy dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to assign it as an accidental death, work a shift the night before but something about who had never turned up. D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the whole thing bothers Lowe, and he enlists murder - but her only clue is the help disappearance of a fellow actorone of the residents, John Le Breton to help him investigate matters furtherfourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. They travel across Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the country during their days off filming, uncovering more possible murders and, seemingly, a link to death during but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the Second World Wargirl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. But is there really a link between the deaths? And will they manage She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to uncover who is responsible before more people lose their lives?|isbn=1803368209Josh.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0CYV674G2B0FK5LHKD9|title=Swanton Morley (John Tanner)The Colour of Memory|author=David BlakeChristopher Bowden|rating=3.54|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=It seemed like an open-and-shut case. A man, covered in mud and blood - and carrying 's been three years since we last reviewed a knifebook by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, comes into the police station shouting that he hasn't killed the man. A body at the bottom of so we were very glad to see a freshly dug grave new novel arrive here at Swanton Morley church - heBookbag Towers. Like all Bowden's been stabbed to death. DCI John Tanner is just back from his honeymoonstories, which coincided with there's a mystery at the birth heart of his daughter Samantha. You would think he'd be grateful for an easy answer but the words 'perverse' and The Colour of Money'John Tanner' were made for each other. HeWe like this running theme in an author's sleepwork -deprived to the point of falling asleep at work take a mystery but he's determined to keep going - probably because he can't get any sleep at homegive it different flavour and atmosphere each time.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1787333175Olga Tokarczuk|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji WaterhouseHouse of Day, House of Night
|rating=5
|genre=Popular ScienceLiterary Fiction|summary=I was tempted to read ''You DonWhat'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, 't Have to be Mad to Work Here'House of Day, House of Night' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book , 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}}{{amazonurlFrontpage|isbn=1509858636henleyA|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, Ultimate Obsession|author=Dai Henley|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=Ex-DCI Andy Flood has been a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHSPrivate Investigator for some time now, humour and autobiographyhe should be doing quite well financially. Unfortunately, his daughter's defence against a murder charge drained his savings. His wife, Laura, has been trying to persuade him to retire - 'You Don't Have to be Mad..maybe go travelling or go on cruises. That's what 'ordinary people do','' He' promised s not been entirely up front about the same elements but moved from physical problems state of their savings. When Jack Durban tries to persuade him to mental illness and take his case, it's the work thought of a psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in the money he could make that convinces him that this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understandingmiscarriage of justice that he really should put right.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Onyi Nwabineli1836284683|title=Allow Me to Introduce MyselfThe Big Happy|author=David Chadwick
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Dystopian Fiction|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the worldWell! This is a murder mystery unlike any other! I do love it when I open a book, thanks to her step-mother Opheliait's increasingly popular presence on social medianothing like I expected it to be, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gainit takes me on a wild ride. Now Anuri And that is in her twenties and she is slowly trying just what happened with ''The Big Happy''. I don't want to regain her confidence and ruin a similar experience for any of you reading but I'll have to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down at least set the content about herscene. Anuri is battling alcoholismOnce that's done, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for doing soyourself. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|isbn=0861546873
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=David ChadwickSally Rooney|title=Headload of NapalmIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction |summary= It's September 1973 in HicksSally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, Californiaas her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Hicks Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a Mojave desert town of a few thousand people socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with its nearest neighbours of LA and Las Vegas both his older brother Peter, a significant drive away. Not much happens successful lawyer living in HicksDublin. A silver mine and Following their father's passing after a defence contractor are long battle with cancer, the main local employers but otherwise, therebrothers's not much of note other than dive bars and Joshua trees. Life is quiet, until...already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn= B0D321VJ760571365469
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1036916375|title=Just a Liverpool Lad|author=Tom PercivalPeter 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 Wrong ShoesDouble Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Will's life is difficulta keen player of video games, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes'conscientious student, he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work a slightly annoying brother and doesn't have enough money for even the a supportive friend. But most basic of things like foodall, and his dad can't work because he lost is an aspiring writer. English is his job favourite lesson at the collegehis school, Marlowe Park, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accidentone at which he excels. Throw into that mix the fact that This hasn't gone unnoticed by his mum and dad are separatedheadteacher, Mrs Howarth, and she has suggested to Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, and his mum that he still has spends a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments couple of joy when he is drawing, that feel like afternoons a light week at the end of a longdifferent school, Station Road, dark tunnelwhere his ability might be better extended.|isbn=1398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sylvie Cathrall1009473085|title=A Letter to the Luminous DeepThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science FictionPolitics and Society|summary= There are few greater joys than Sometimes 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 lives up to will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for you. If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a compelling premiseread and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. And 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 is one as the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of themthe nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024.|isbn= 0356522776
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008517061Jenny Valentine|title=Death Us in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abellthe Before and After|rating=45|genre=CrimeTeens|summary= Former Metropolitan Police detectiveElk and Mab are best friends, Jake Johnsonor more than that even, has settled into his rustic life at Little Skytheir friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. There’s perhaps They meet as children one day on a little uncertainty about trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the future of his life with his vet girlfriendtime. But then chance brings them back together, Livia and her daughter Dianathey are inseparable. Something has happened though, as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid something terrible and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the future she wants for herself tragic, and her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present now they must work through their grief, and putting the future on the back burnertheir friendship, together.|isbn=1471196585
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17864821261787333175|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Elly GriffithsBenji Waterhouse|rating=4.5|genre=CrimePopular Science|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site I was going tempted to hold seventy-five read 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the bones workings of a child beneath a doorwaythe NHS, humour and autobiography. There was no skull''You Don't Have to be Mad.. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, ' promised the same elements but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a result of the one night they spent together some three months agopsychiatrist. Her condition will I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be obvious before long, not least because Ruth looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is prone to sudden bouts of sicknessalways delivered with empathy and understanding.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008551324Mariana Enriquez|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil LancasterA Sunny Place for Shady People|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeShort Stories|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 Mariana Enriquez writes horror that 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 disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: 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 settings include an open prison to serve the remainder abandoned field full of his sentence and disused refrigerators due to get an early parole dateurban planning mishap, an overcrowded homeless shelter and a crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think circumstances of her characters are so and she's even prepared to do plausible that 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 happeningsupernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture.|isbn=1803511230
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00084050261529934753|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)The Protest|author=Jane CaseyRob Rinder|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=ItFor a little while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, the country's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She most famous living artist, was never found and not going to show up for the opening of his retrospective at the investigation ground to a haltRoyal Academy. NowStill, her motherhe arrived in the nick of time, Helenacomplete with his two wives and six children, and her father are dead in their bedone of whom filmed what happened. InitiallyBeing an influencer, it looks you tend to do things like a straightforward murder/suicide that, but it was fortunate that there's something about was a record of the protest. Lexi Williams, an intern at the positioning RA, grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a chair and proceeded to spray Bruce in the face, whilst shouting ''Stop the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspiciousWar''. What looked as though it was going It seemed to be part of an openongoing series of 'blue-and-shut case is now a complex double murderface' attacks, but this was different. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's bossThe can had been laced with cyanide, Una Burt) are less convincedand Sir Max Bruce was dead.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0571379877Ariel Saramandi|title=The Kellerby Code|author=Jonny SweetPortrait of an Island on Fire|rating=34.5|genre=CrimePolitics and Society|summary=Edward Jevons is a working-class young manIn this powerful collection of essays, obsessed with his upper-class friendsSaramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, Robert tunneling deep into the wounds left by colonialism and Stanzaslavery to expose how these legacies still shape modern life. RobertSaramandi describes the country at one stage as 's 'rotting'', a theatre director. He's also self-obsessedblunt yet apt metaphor for the systemic decay brought about by the malignant forces of racism, demandingpatriarchy, handsome and entitled environmental degradation and uses Edward to run errands for himgovernmental dysfunction. Edward has been Each essay in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that this collection serves as a relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon kind of diagnostic, charting the various diseases afflicting the two of them kissing in a dark passagewayisland state.|isbn=1804271616
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jo CallaghanPekka Harju-Autti|title=Leave No TraceLoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeFantasy|summary=When It's the eighteenth century, a man time of discovery and Britain is found crucified on expanding its foreign trade. Captain Julius Hawthorne, an experienced Scottish sea captain, is sent to the top of a hill Andaman Islands in Nuneatonhis endeavour. Along with his son, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekickPeter, the AI detective Lock. It's and their first live case togethercat, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a second body found crucified a few days laterMichi, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws they set off on a lot of unwanted attention perilous voyage to their AI Future Policing projectthese faraway lands. Will they be able to solve the case The islands are beautiful and stunning in time, or will Kat find herself taken off their scenery and the case andislanders' leader, potentiallyAarav, out of a career?is keen to establish good relations.|isbn=139851120XB0DS1VGHH3
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1399613073Helene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=Moral Injuries|author=Christie WatsonLili is Crying
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=OliviaFirst published in 1953 in French, Laura this novel is a timeless text which wrenches the hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and Anjali met sentences from their proper position on the first day of medical school page and their friendship would keep positions them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitiouselsewhere, disjointed, which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeontruncated. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is Like the free spirit lives of the group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them her characters, they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involvedoften left tragically incomplete.|isbn=1804271675
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241636604Tom Percival|title=The Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary StevensonWrong Shoes|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyConfident Readers|summary=If you were to bring up an image of Will's life is difficult, in a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think multitude of someone like Gary Stevensonways. A hoodie He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and jeans replaces doesn't have enough money for even the pin-stripe suit most basic of things like food, and his background is dad can't work because he lost his job at the East Endcollege, where he was familiar with violence, poverty working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and injusticehad an accident. There was no posh public school on Throw into that mix the fact that his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economicsmum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and And yet, he still has a facility with numbers which most tiny amount of us can only envyhope. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability is good at what wasart, essentiallyand clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventuallylight at the end of a long, this turned into permanent employment as a traderdark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1035021803Sylvie Cathrall|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back A Letter to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more There are few greater joys than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept book which lives up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from mea compelling premise. Some And this is one of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understandthem.|isbn= 0356522776
}}
{{Frontpage
|genre=Crime
|summary=Charlotte Salter Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was expected at her husbandgoing to hold seventy-five 'luxury's fiftieth birthday party but never turned upapartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, EttyThere was no skull. are all worried but - strangely - her husband Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Alec, is notDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of GregIt's fatherdifficult as Ruth knows, Duncan Ackerleybut Nelson doesn't, in the river. It was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand she is pregnant with his child as a result of the guiltone night they spent together some three months ago. The Salter children are Her condition will be obvious before long, not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happenedleast because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1035906708Guadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=Diva|author=Daisy GoodwinThe Accidentals
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionShort Stories|summary=We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she This collection was born to Greek parents truly enchanting in Manhattan, New Yorkall senses of the word: spellbinding with its fantastical, magical elements and charming in December 1923 its gentle portrayal of nature and only moved to Athens when she was thirteenhuman relationships. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and precisely, her father changed it stories structured by a wisdom that appears to 'Callas' want to make it more manageable in teach us something about the States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackieworld.|isbn=1804271470
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Christopher Edge0008551375|title=Black Hole Cinema ClubWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Lucas and his friends are all booked in for Leanne Wilson's body was found at the bottom of a movie marathon at their local cinemaScottish mountain, a place that has seemingly the nickname result of 'The Black Hole'a tragic accident. All big movie fans, theyShe're looking forward to lots of exciting filmsd looked so happy, and manytoo, many snacks! when she posted her intentions on Facebook. However, Her friends were relieved as the movie startsshe was just out of an unpleasant relationship, they very quickly realise but it looked like she was living her best life now. Then it emerged that something about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imaginefive other women had died in similar circumstances in the last year. But as they lurch from one film genre to the nextAll were experienced climbers, can they figure out properly equipped for what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738}}{{Frontpage|author=Rachel Greenlaw|title=Compass were doing and Blade|rating=3sensible people.5|genre=Teens|summary=''I can hear the song None of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.'' Rosevear, what a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out stupid thing to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies withindo' explanations applied. But They were all alone when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the islanddied: DS Max Craigie is certain there's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in killer on the sealoose. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
}}