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<metadesc>Expert , full book reviews & recommendations from most walks of literary life; fiction, biography, crimenon-fiction, cookery & children's books & self-published books plus author interviews & top tens.</metadesc>
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==Reviews of the The Best New Books==
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Christina Hammonds Reed0008551375|title=The Black KidsWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens Crime|summary=Christina Hammonds ReedLeanne Wilson's debut novel is set against body was found at the backdrop bottom of the 1992 Los Angeles riotsa Scottish mountain, a reaction to seemingly the absolution result of four police officers for beating a black mantragic accident. She'd looked so happy, Rodney Kingtoo, when she posted her intentions on Facebook. Her friends were relieved as she was just out of an unpleasant relationship, nearly to deathbut it looked like she was living her best life now. Told from Then it emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the perspective last year. All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and sensible people. None of Ashley Bennett, the novel follows her evolution from 'what a silent bystander stupid thing to do' explanations applied. They were all alone when confronted with matters of race, to they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's a woman finding her voice and embracing her heritagekiller on the loose.|isbn=1471188191
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0751567426Paul B Preciado|title=The Wicked Sister|author=Karen DionneDysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersPolitics and Society|summary=When we first meet Rachel Cunningham she's an inpatient at the Newberry Regional Mental Health Center in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. She's twenty-six and has been there for fifteen years, convinced that she accidentally killed her mother when she was eleven-years-old and that her father then took the gun and killed himself. Her sister, Diana, just twenty-years-old, was left at the family home, a lodge in the Upper Peninsula wilderness. Rachel's very bright and although she's a voluntary patient at the Mental Health Center she remains there, feeling that this It is what she deserves. Perhaps, though, the circumstances are not as she remembers.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1506909442|title=The Worst Dogs: A Progressive Murder-Mystery|author=Matthew de Lacey Davidson|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=''The greatest hatred, like never too late to embrace the greatest virtue and the worst dogs, is silent.revolutionary optimism of childhood''
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Rob BakerSamantha Harvey|title=Toubab Tales: The Joys and Trials of Expat Life in AfricaOrbital|rating=4.5|genre=TravelGeneral Fiction|summary=''"Go to MaliIn 2024," they said. "The music is amazing," they said. "And you get ten hours of sunshine every day." So I did.Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for '' Rob Baker is an ethnomusicologist. Orbital''A what?'' I hear you cry. Well, an ethnomusicologist studies music a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in relation to culture, so rather like the lives of a group of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Through a folklorist studies narrative lens that mirrors the oral and written story traditions relating astronauts' orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to see our planet in a culturewholly new light. |isbn=B089CSNFT71529922933
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=James Patterson295967572X|title=Hawk: A Maximum Ride NovelPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=45|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=Hawk has been waiting on the same street corner, every day, for years. She Our unnamed narrator is waiting for her parents about to come and get herbegin a train journey with his companion Django. They left her there when she was just tiny, and although she's almost certain that Where they are never coming back for her, she continues to head back there each day, just in case. Hawk isn't your ordinary street urchin though...she has wings, re going and can fly! Since she was abandoned she's been living with a group what the purpose of other childrenthis journey is, all with interesting characteristics of their own and together theyis uncertain. Django found the tickets ''ve made their own family. But now on the city is seemingly even more troubled than usual, therefloor somewhere''s a mysterious child-killer who and has been brought persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the prison next door past as the pair travel to where the children live, station by coach and then one day Hawk comes home to find her family has been taken awaythe train is a steam locomotive. Where have they been taken, and can Hawk rescue them before it's too late?|isbn=1529120004
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17857656980008551324|title=Shed No TearsThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Caz FrearNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=In November 2012 Christopher Masters, It's unusual for anyone from the man who would become known as 'Hardie family to approach the roommate killer', strangled three women in a fortnightpolice. When he was arrested he admitted Neither side likes or has any respect for the killingsother. A fourth death was attributed But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to him - that tell the police where the body of Holly Kemp - a missing person is buried and on occasionswho was responsible for her death. This person, Masters admitted to the killing, then he denied it - then admitted itpromises, then denied is someone big and itwill be worth the police doing what he wants. He played with And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the police, but there was sufficient evidence on the first three killings remainder of his sentence and to put him away for a long time and the CPS were not convinced about the Holly Kemp caseget an early parole date. There was no body Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and once Masters was murdered in prison, no hope of progressing she's even prepared to do the case furtherother 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
|isbnauthor=1473682401|title=The Turning Tide Jon Fosse and Damion Searls (Dandy Gilvertranslator)|authortitle=Catriona McPhersonVaim
|rating=4
|genre=Crime Literary Fiction|summary=''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 (HistoricalJimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=Those I can't have been the only person who were with us at the end of was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[A Step So Grave Wild Fire (Dandy GilverShetland, Book 8) by Catriona McPhersonAnn Cleeves|A Step So Graveleft Shetland]] will remember that Donald was engaged to Mallory Dunnochstart a new life on Orkney. TheyIt're s been seven years since we heard from him, but he's now married living with Willow Reeves and Mallory is having twins. When they arrive no one can doubt their young son, James, as well as Cassie, the charms daughter of Lavinia Dahlia Cherry and her brother, Edward Hugh Lachlan Gilverhis former partner. There are two drawbacks: theyWillow're noisy s also his boss, and theyshe 're staying with Dandy and Hugh. Dandy and her detective partner'should'' be on maternity leave, but when the body of a popular islander, Archie Stout, Alec Osborneis found, had not taken up in the chance to look into aftermath of a problem at the Cramond ferry when it was offered to them twice beforestorm, but suddenly she can't resist getting involved. He'd been battered about the possibility head with a Neolithic stone - one of being out of the house at Gilverton seems irresistiblea pair - which had been stolen from a museum.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B07WWSCGVSThea Lenarduzzi|title=The Lies You Told|author=Harriet TyceTower
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Year six student Robin Spence isn't happy about having to start a new school. She's left How unctuous are the school she loved in New York and now shefats of another's going to Ashams life, how dizzying their sugars in North London. Itour bloodstream's very upmarket; places are rare as hens' teeth and as . In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the pupils have all been there ''forever''identity of T, they have their established groupsthe protagonist of this tale. RobinJust as T's going to be an outsider. And why story is being told, the story of a second protagonist is this happening? Wellunveiled: Annie, over the daughter of a matter wealthy family in the 19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a few days her parentstower, captures T's imagination. Annie' marriage fell aparts fate is, above all, an enticing story to T. Andrew Spence It is staying a story which she consumes avariciously, both in New York - he works a quest for a securities firm - truth and her motherknowledge, Sadie Roperand in service of myth, has come back to London to pick up her practice as a criminal barristerfable and fantasy. That's easier said than done when you've been out of the market place - and the country - for more than ten years.|isbn=1804271799
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1408712415Claire-Louise Bennett|title=Cry Baby|author=Mark BillinghamBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=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 test 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 June 1996 sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and football's European Championships her father are about to start dead in Londontheir bed. DS Tom Thorne is having Initially, it looks like a nightmare and itstraightforward murder/suicide but there's one he has regularlysomething about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. It relates What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a case from ten years earlier when he complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent'knews boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.}}{{Frontpage|author=Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=The Other Girl|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary='' that a man was guilty, but didn't take any action until We were born from the mansame body. I's wife and three children had been murdered and the man had killed himselfve never really wanted to think about this.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B08CHJLNBSMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Capturing Emilia|author=Brooke AdamsReminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating=3.5|genre=Women's FictionBiography|summary=He's Charles Devereaux, thirty-eight and a partner at Wickham Jones, Biographies are often seen as the Mayfair letting agents. She's Emilia, twentyform of life-nine, librarian writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and archivist in the heritage library next doorless personal. Emilia has read [[The Secret by Rhonda Byrne|The Secret]] but she's moved on from new age books like I think thatGorky completely rejects this perspective, which leave you dependent on someone else's philosophiesand offers a vibrant, to something a little deepersubjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. Charles is more In the first section of a [[Personal by Lee Child|Jack Reacher]] man himselfthis book, but, above all, he's shocked Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that Emilia reads : ''The Guardian''. They're obviously you write not at all compatibleof real life as it is, so why can Charles not get this woman out but of his mind? She's not his usual type at all: what you yourself imagine it's obvious to his friendsbe. And given Whom would it help to know how I see this tower, that Emilia regularly feels repulsed by Charles's superficialitysea, or that Tartar - why does she feel drawn to himshould it interest anyone? Of what use is it? The relationship's obviously '. Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a non-startersubjective account, giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, isn't Chekhov and Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it?.|isbn=1804271977
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15043213831529077745|title=Single, Again, and Again, and AgainThe Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Louisa PatemanAnn Cleeves
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary=''You can't be happy and fulfilled on your ownA man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in the park near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. You are not complete until you find a The dead man''. This was what Louisa Pateman Josh - one of the care workers who was brought due to work a shift the night before but who had never turned up to believe. It wasn't unkind: it was simply the adults D I Vera Stanhope is called in her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for investigate the murder - but heronly clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. It Some people believe that Chloe was reinforced by all those fairy tales where responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued by the handsome prince who then marries her so diary makes it clear that they can live happily ever aftershe adored Josh. Few girls are lucky enough She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to be brought up ''without'' the expectation that they will marry and have children. It was a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a choice''Josh.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1787301435B0FK5LHKD9|title=Dark WatersThe Colour of Memory|author=G R HallidayChristopher Bowden|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's been three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, so we were very glad to see a new novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Like all Bowden's stories, there's a mystery at the heart of ''The Colour of Money''. We like this running theme in an author's work - take a mystery but give it different flavour and atmosphere each time.}}{{Frontpage|author=Olga Tokarczuk|title=House of Day, House of Night|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''What's the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?'' The title of this spellbinding work, ''House of Day, House of Night'', somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the shift from day to night, however quotidian, causing chaos. But, the constant in that image is the house, stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|isbn=1804271918}}{{Frontpage|isbn=henleyA|title=Ultimate Obsession|author=Dai Henley
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=TwentyEx-two-year-old Annabelle Whittaker made her second mistake when she opted to drive down the private road in Glen Turrit. It was DCI Andy Flood has been a long road through Private Investigator for some breath-taking scenery time now, and she could push the car to its limits without fear of being caught speedinghe should be doing quite well financially. When the blond child stepped out in front of her she instinctively jerked the steering wheel and hit Unfortunately, his daughter's defence against a treemurder charge drained his savings. When she came round after the accident she couldnHis wife, Laura, has been trying to persuade him to retire - 't work out where she was, but it obviously wasn't a conventional hospitalmaybe go travelling or go on cruises. SheThat's what 'ordinary people do'd made her first mistake some time ago, although the realisation wouldn't be obvious to her for a long time. ' SheHe'd made s not been entirely up front about the state of their savings. When Jack Durban tries to persuade him to take his case, it when she chose to have her father buy her 's the thought of the money he could make that convinces him that this is a pale blue BMW M4miscarriage of justice that he really should put right.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Suzanne Collins1836284683|title=The Ballad of Songbirds and SnakesBig Happy|author=David Chadwick
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensDystopian Fiction|summary= Coriolanus Snow Well! This is refineda murder mystery unlike any other! I do love it when I open a book, charming, and one of the only surviving members of the affluent Snow family. But their world was destroyed by the war. Their riches gone, his parents dead - and yet the facade must it's nothing like I expected it to be maintained. As the 10th Hunger Games begins, Coriolanus and other students of the Academy become the first Mentors of the tributes in the gamesit takes me on a wild ride. This And that is his chance to prove himself to the world and secure his place in the Capitol for good. But when he is assigned a tribute just what happened with no hope - a girl from District 12 - he thinks all chances of winning (both for her and for him) are gone''The Big Happy''. But Lucy Gray Baird proves herself I don't want to be ruin a spark in his world, in a way he could never have imagined. As the Games commence, Lucy Gray fights similar experience for her life in the arena - any of you reading but behind I'll have to at least set the scenes, in the sly, complex and strangely dangerous world of the Capitolscene. Once that's done, Coriolanus is fighting I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for his life tooyourself. Will she survive the Games? Will he? And what happens then?|isbn=0702300179
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sakinu AhronglongSally Rooney|title=Hunter SchoolIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Sally 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, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. 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 socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.
|isbn=0571365469
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1036916375
|title=Just a Liverpool Lad
|author=Peter McArdle
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary= The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it ''Just a Liverpool Lad '' is a work collection of fiction. That's possibly misleading. I am not sure whether it is "fiction" in memories and reflections from the sense that Ahronglong made it all years Peter McArdle spent growing upin and around Liverpool. Some are factual, or whether it is such as the blurb goes on to say ''recollectionsfamily history of a sea-going family, folklore and autobiographical with the docks dominating lives. Other storiesblend 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. It feels like I'd never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and could appear after the latterall-clear was sounded. It feels like the stories he tells about his experiences as }} {{Frontpage|isbn= 1836285493|title=The Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary= Will is a childkeen player of video games, as an adolescenta conscientious student, as an adult are real a slightly annoying brother and truea supportive friend. But memory most of all, he is a fickle thingan aspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at his school, Marlowe Park, and one at which he excels. This hasn't gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and maybe poetic licence she has taken over here suggested to Will and there and maybe calling it fiction means his mum that its safer and therefore more people will read it. More people shouldhe spends a couple of afternoons a week at a different school, Station Road, where his ability might be better extended.|isbn=1999791282
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1009473085|title=The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=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 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 read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. 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 as the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024.}}{{Frontpage|author=Kat EllisJenny Valentine|title=Harrow LakeUs in the Before and After|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=When we first meet 17-year-old LolaElk and Mab are best friends, daughter to legendary horror movie director Nolan Noxor more than that even, she their friendship is saying goodbye to New York City - by sneaking out and stealing from its residents. But when she is found by her father's assistant and forced to come home, she arrives to find an unlocked door, a trail of blood, and her father dying once in his studya lifetime connection. And so, while he recovers, she is sent off to live with her grandmother in Harrow Lake, the small 1920s town in Indiana that served They meet as the location for the film that made her parents famous. But something about this place isnchildren one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't right. Thereget each other's a darkness inside contact details at the people heretime. Secrets about her mother and dark tales of the town's cannibal monster 'Mister Jitters' fill every corner But then chance brings them back together, and disturbing happenings plague Lolathey are inseparable. But with every passing hour Something has happened though, secrets long buried come painfully to light something terrible and she begins to think that these stories may not be stories at alltragic, and something very real now they must work through their grief, and sinister lurks in Harrow Laketheir friendship, together.|isbn=02413970491471196585
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Helly Acton1787333175|title= The ShelfYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating= 45|genre= Women's FictionPopular Science|summary= When we meet Amy, sheI was tempted to read ''s in a relationship with Jamie. You canDon't really call it a partnership, because things tend Have to be Mad to get done on his terms, but sheWork Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's sticking around because she hopes she can change him. Ahfirst book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, yeshumour and autobiography. Haven ''You Don't we all been there? Things are looking up when he tells her Have to pack for a surprise tripbe Mad... Could this be it? Is he ''finally'' going promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to get down on one knee? Was mental illness and the work (of a psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and the wait) worth it?|isbn=1838770879is always delivered with empathy and understanding.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Justine Avery and Daria YudinaMariana Enriquez|title= This Book Wants to Make You Laugh (Living Book)A Sunny Place for Shady People|rating= 45|genre= For SharingShort Stories|summary=This Living Book Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on a mission. What's the mission? To make you laugh! I can't think gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of many better missions than thatdisused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishap, can you? Let's see how it does... .... well, it opens up with an overcrowded homeless shelter and a terrible joke. A groany joke, an eyecrime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine -roll jokeall within Argentina. The joke isn't very funny but it is funny to see how enthusiastic and how generously this book wants to make you laugh - ''Oh, I'm terrible at jokes. Some books circumstances of her characters are so good at them. I always wanted to help someone laughplausible that the supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture.'' |isbn= 194812453X1803511230
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294022711529934753|title=Murder on the Moorland (Kitt Hartley Yorkshire Mysteries)The Protest|author=Helen CoxRob Rinder|rating=34.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=DI Malcolm Halloran and Kitt HartleyFor a little while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, the country's relationship is developing nicely: they're even into a spot most famous living artist, was not going to show up for the opening of bandage now, although his retrospective at the details are (mercifully) scantRoyal Academy. After a night of passion Halloran is called away Still, he arrived in the early hours nick of time, complete with his two wives and six children, one of the morningwhom filmed what happened. There's been a murder in IrendaleBeing an influencer, where Halloran used you tend to live and where his wife, Kamalado things like that, but it was fortunate that there was strangled five years agoa record of the protest. There are sufficient details Lexi Williams, an intern at the RA, grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a chair and proceeded to spray Bruce in the current murder face, whilst shouting ''Stop the War''. It seemed to make Halloran suspect that the man who murdered his wife be part of an ongoing series of 'blue- and others - is in some way involvedface' attacks, despite being in prisonbut this was different. The DI heads off to speak to Jeremy Kerrcan had been laced with cyanide, and Sir Max Bruce was dead.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Mark DawsonAriel Saramandi|title= The CleanerPortrait of an Island on Fire|rating= 4.5|genre= ThrillersPolitics and Society|summary= Ruthless and coldly competentIn this powerful collection of essays, John Milton is one Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, tunneling deep into the British governmentwounds left by colonialism and slavery to expose how these legacies still shape modern life. Saramandi describes the country at one stage as 's best assets – 'rotting'', a contract killer with lethal instinctsblunt yet apt metaphor for the systemic decay brought about by the malignant forces of racism, patriarchy, environmental degradation and governmental dysfunction. NowEach essay in this collection serves as a kind of diagnostic, after ten years, he wants outcharting the various diseases afflicting the island state. But his job isn't one you can just walk away from…|isbn=178739462X1804271616
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Angela MackPekka Harju-Autti|title=I Am UnworthyLoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse
|rating=4
|genre=TeensFantasy|summary= Isabel is determined to start fresh. Start again. Sixth form will be different. Her tormentor doesnIt't go to Gilleford Secondary School anymore. She can escape s the hurt, the feareighteenth century, a time of discovery and the person she becameBritain is expanding its foreign trade. Josh Captain Julius Hawthorne, an experienced Scottish sea captain, is determined sent to keep going, even through the rageAndaman Islands in his endeavour. Along with his son, the painPeter, and using his fists their cat, Michi, they set off on a perilous voyage to solve any problem or situationthese faraway lands. But he has secrets that threaten to tear him The islands are beautiful and his brothers apart. When Josh stunning in their scenery and Isabelthe islanders's worlds collideleader, Aarav, can they make their relationship work? Can they both finally be happy? Or will Josh's time run out?is keen to establish good relations.|isbn=B089FL7H4HB0DS1VGHH3
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Laura Imai MessinaHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=The Phone Box at the End of the WorldLili is Crying|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= In the northeast of Japan, First published in Inwate Prefecture a man installed a telephone box 1953 in his garden. ''Inside there is an old blackFrench, telephone, disconnected, that carries voices into the wind.'' It this novel is a real placetimeless text which wrenches the hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the page and positions them elsewhere, a necessary placedisjointed, and I am pleased to see truncated. Like the IMPORTANT NOTE that the author attaches to lives of her story, that the place is not a tourist destinationcharacters, it is a sacred place, a place that must be they are often left to those who really need ittragically incomplete.|isbn=178658039X1804271675
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0859115X5Tom Percival|title=Lies to Tell (DI Clare Mackay)|author=Marion ToddThe Wrong Shoes|rating=45|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=When we meet up with DI Clare Mackay again sheWill's at Daisy Cottage on the outskirts of St Andrews with her English Bull Terrierlife is difficult, Benjy. She's just had in a postcard from Geoffrey Dark and he's in Provincetown, Cape Codmultitude of ways. He wishes that she was there, but Clare's struggling to think of what is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes'actually'' is to her now. Is , he her boyfriend? Her ex-boyfriend? She has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work it out and thinks that Geoffrey probably doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't eitherwork because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. WorkThrow into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's about to get very busy and she can't work out why DCI Alastair Gibson life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has cancelled a meeting she'd arranged without discussing it with her firsttiny amount of hope. They're off somewhere top secretHe is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1780899858Sylvie Cathrall|title=To Tell You A Letter to the Truth|author=Gilly MacmillanLuminous Deep|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeScience Fiction|summary=When Lucy Bewley was nine-years-old she crept out of the house on the night of the summer solstice There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to watch the pagan celebrations in Stoke Woodsa compelling premise. Her four-year-old brother, Teddy, would have woken the house if she hadn't taken him with her. But in the early hours And this is one of the morning, Lucy returned home without Teddy, hoping that he would have got home before her. He hadn't and no one has seen him since. Lucy's story was crucial to the police investigation, but it keeps subtly changing. Lucy is being advised by her imaginary friend, Eliza Grey and Eliza says that there are certain things which Lucy must not tell the policethem.|isbn= 0356522776
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=00082147001786482126|title=Cut to the Bone The Janus Stone (DI Meg DaltonDr Ruth Galloway)|author=Roz WatkinsElly Griffiths|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=DI Meg Dalton and Ds Jai Sanghera are dealing with Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the case of a missing teenager. Violet Armstrong is wellsite was going to hold seventy-known as a vlogger five 'luxury' apartments - championing when they discovered the cause bones of meat-eatinga child beneath a doorway. She barbeques meat wearing only a bikini and has attracted the attention of animal rights activistsThere was no skull. The meat-eaters (they wear meat suits) are determined that Meg Dalton is corrupt and not running a decent investigation (''obviously'' she only got the job because she's a woman) because she's Was this a vegetarian. ritual killing or murder? As if the case wasn't enoughInevitably, Meg's father is coming to stay Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with her despite having had little to do with her for fifteen years and JaiDCI Harry Nelson. It's convinced that his girlfriend, Sukidifficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't like his children and , that she wants moreis pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, but he doesn'tnot least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.
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|isbnauthor=1784385166Guadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=The Third Reich in 100 Objects: A Material History of Nazi Germany|author=Roger MoorhouseAccidentals|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryShort Stories|summary=What is the first image that comes to mind when you think This collection was truly enchanting in all senses of the Third Reich? Hitler? A swastika? The Nazi salute? The gate to a concentration camp? None of these are comfortable images but they are emblematic of the Third Reich's fascist regime word: spellbinding with its fantastical, magical elements and charming in all its iniquitygentle portrayal of nature and human relationships. But some objects Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and images from precisely, her stories structured by a wisdom that time may be less familiar appears to you. In this short volume, Roger Moorhouse has attempted want to illustrate teach us something about the period of the Third Reich through one hundred of its material artefactsworld. |isbn=1804271470
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